Economically Importance Insects of the Plantations in
Basrah Province, Iraq

Alyousuf A; Nikpay A

Short Communication

Ann Agric Crop Sci. 2020; 5(2): 1061.

Economically Importance Insects of the Plantations in Basrah Province, Iraq

Alyousuf A¹* and Nikpay A²

¹Department of Plant Protection, University of Basrah, Iraq

²Department of Plant Protection, Sugarcane & By- Products Development Company, Iran

*Corresponding author: Aqeel Alyousuf, Department of Plant Protection, University of Basrah, College of Agriculture, Basrah, Iraq

Received: May 01, 2020; Accepted: May 18 2020; Published: May 25, 2020

Short Communication

The Agri-system of Basrah province, Iraq varied depending on the regions which have different ecosystems, the southern, eastern, and northern which divided into the desert area and sedimentary area. The southern and the eastern region are commercial plantations for date palm trees and leaf crop and other vegetable crops, while the desert is planting with tomato crop under tunnels annually, and the field crops and date palms usually are planted in the sedimentary area.

Date palms, which are one of the most economic fruit tree in Iraq, highly susceptible to different pests. Several pests including important economic insects such as the longhorn palm stem borer Jebu saea hammerschmidt (Coleoptera : Cerambycidae), fruit stalk beetle Oryctes spp. (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) (Figure1), lesser date moth Batrachedra amydraula (Lepidoptera : Batrachedridae) (Figure 2), and mite pest, date palm dust mite Oligonychus afrasiaticus (McGregor) cause significant damage and yield losses up to 25% in some varieties of date palm in Basrah. For controlling these pests, varies methods of were suggested to suppress the pests under the Economic thresholds ET [1-3]. Recently, for the first time in Iraq, the date palms of Basrah were invaded by the red palm weevils Hyncophorous ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790) (Figure 3) in December 2015 after two infestations patches of RPW were spotted in Safwan county about three Km from Iraq- Kuwait border [4]; After RPW has been listed as a quarantine pest and the intensive chemical control have been applied during the five years, the pest did not spread to the other regions of Basrah province depending on the data of Iraqi Ministry for Agriculture. Jujube Ziziphus spp. is the second important fruit tree in eastern region that infested with different pests, such as jujube fruit fly Carpomyiaincomplete, Tarucusrosaceus (Lycaenidae : Lepidoptera) and white fly Acaud aleyrodes rachipora (Sinph) (Hemiptera : Aleyrodidae). Jujube fruit fly is the serious pest infesting Jujube fruits casing significant damage and falling off more than 50% of infested fruits during the two insect generations after hatching, the larva of C incomplete bores into the fruit and feeds there until larval development is complete (Figure 4) [5]; the control applications should be applied by spraying the trees twice by using chemical insecticides such as Methomyl and Cyfluthrin in the beginning of the growing season [6-10]. The leaf crops and many vegetables, in these regions, are attacked by numerous insects which cause economic and cosmetic damages for the valuable plant parts such as the leaf and fruits. To manage and minimize the their impacts, many researches have been carried out on the control of vegetable pests including aphids, Lepidoptera pests, beetles, mites, like Tetranych usurticae and many other pests on radish, celery, leek, onion, beans, Okra, cabbage, Lettuce, and others [11-19].

Figure 1: (A) Adult of Oryctes spp. (B) larvae of Oryctes spp. infested date palms.

    
    
    Figure 1: (A) Adult of Oryctes spp. (B) larvae of Oryctes spp. infested date
palms.

Economically Importance Insects of the Plantations in Basrah Province, Iraq

Short Communication

References