Red PalmWeevil-Rhynchophorus ferrugineus-PestAlert

[admin]

Red Palm weevil is also known with its scientific name 'Rhynchophorus ferrugineus':

To reach the most genuine sources (the research sources) about this beetle is necessary firstly to type its name the just way. Infact its name repeats its 'h' three times, so that frequently people write it not the just way, so does not succed in finding academic and research informations about this insect.

Basic infos from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhynchophorus_ferrugineus

and EPPO: http://www.eppo.int/QUARANTINE/special_ ... riffo1.HTM

To help those of you, browsing  through foreign sources and interested in deepening this issue, whose comprehension is important to help public organizations in  preserving our city gardens, I can also tell you that Red Palm Weevil in Italy is known as 'punteruolo rosso della palma' and in Spain as 'picudo rojo'.

Italy and Spain are, at now, two of the coutries where this insect is performing its more dangerous activity and if you serch enough by the internet you can find a lot of informations about it.

The red palm weevil reached Italy some years ago after having already made damages in Spain especially along the coastal region of Valencia and in Canaries where he killed many ancient beautiful palm plants. So that if you associate this insect name to the words 'canary isles', or 'islas canarias', or 'costa blanca' (the Valencia coastal region) you probably find lot of informations from local sources telling about the intense activity developed by the local town councils to struggle this pest.
Before reaching Spain, red palm weevil was in Northern Africa and Arabic countries where we can find other antecedent studies about this issue.
Anyway all this experiencies were useful to develop more effective ways to fight this dangerous beetle, so that last year in Italy someone began to talk of new manners to prevent the spreading of this pest.

As follow you will  find a list of classified resources to get more informations about it, but everyone is allowed to post other links to more recent technical documents, other source/informations and also every-day news especially those containing  photos displaying the dangerous effect of this pest on some mediterranean landscapes.

Is also necesary to explain, as referred by many sources, that some of the similar damages occurring on our palms are owed to an other pest insect, the moth Paysandisia archon, also frequent in Italy
- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysandisia_archon).
- EPPO: http://www.eppo.int/QUARANTINE/special_ ... etails.htm

Links series about Rhynchophorus ferrugineus:

English sources:

Technical sources:

- Red Palm Weevil: Arabic/English  web-site in which are gathered lot of informations about this pest and where researchers will be able to join this web-site mailing-list :

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/RPWgroup/

- Malta government  document ('.pdf; 23 pg. With many pictures):
http://www.agric.gov.mt/pub-articles?l=1

Spanish sources:

News sources:

Damages to the famous palm trees of 'Elche' (Spain) (2006): http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/126201/ ... ral/elche/
Damages to the palms of Canary isles; in this article, they say the pest arrived from the Valencia coast: http://sanbarandan.blogspot.com/2006/02 ... mente.html

Technical sources:

How to fight Rhyncophorus ferrugineus: http://sanbarandan.blogspot.com/2007/01 ... -rojo.html

Italian sources:

News sources:

- First damages at Palermo (Sicily – Italy):

http://palermo.repubblica.it/dettaglio/ ... ta/1384679

[admin]

---> This messages follows to the antecedent that was too log to contain all the text:


Italian sources:


Technical sources:

(1) Campania Region - Agriculture Department:

(a) Booklet: 'Be carefull to 'Punteruolo rosso' ('.pdf' file; 8 pages).

(a) Furtermore, in this page are some documents about some field trials aiming to kill this pest, by means of: endoterapy with abamectina (an organic-similar pesticide from avermectine derived from a yeast), azadiractin (an organic pesticide from the plant Azadiracta indica), the chemical active matter 'clothianidin', the antagonist nematode Steinerma carpocapse and endly a trial taking advantage of microwave applications. You can find all thiese trials in this web page:

http://www.sito.regione.campania.it/agr ... -2008.html


(c) Here you can find the list of palm tree species for which the European Commission has stated is needed the plant-health passport to allow their transportation across the European Territory:

http://www.sito.regione.campania.it/agr ... 12_07.html


(2) In this '.pdf' document from the tecnical review 'Clamerinforma' (http://www.clamerinforma.it/), they say, some data available show male individuals of palm tree are more damaged than female ones, since palms are 'dioic' plants:

http://www.clamerinforma.it/News/File/G ... _sesso.pdf


French sources:

http://gardenbreizh.org/articles/articl ... miers.html


-->You can add more English documental resources about agriculture, farming & cattle breeding tecniques, agricultural research & institutions in you country, posting a following message.