Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1738588467

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-115043

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

Place of publication:: Nairobi

Publisher:: East African Standard

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: VI, 337 Seiten; Ill.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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310 APPENDIX. little leaf diseases, stem bleeding, leaf spot diseases, scale insects, and lastly melitomma and rhinoceros beetles established themselves in coconut plantations and naturally passed from one tree to the other in most cases. It is for example quite surprising to find the melitomma bettle, which is a very shy insect, attacking coconut stems only and killing out a tree in full bearing and showing hardly any external sign except to a trained eye. This insect is indigenous in the Seychelles, North Madagascar, Senegal, and South America. As already stated the coconut palm is an introduced plant; hence the melitomma beetle formerly occurred on other plants in the Seychelles, later acquiring the habit of attacking the soft tissues of the coconut stem without ever being found on other plants. This has apparently been caused by intergrowing plants harbouring insects in coconut groves during such a long period of time that the life history of these insects has become modified. It is however important before arriving at conclusions as to this theory to find out whether in N. Madagascar or Senegal the melitomma beetle occurs on other plants. The same theory applies in all probability to other insects such as for example the scale insect known under the name of Pinnaspis buxi which is a scourge at the present moment and which evidently escaped from the indigenous screw pines (Pandanus) on which they were recorded more than 20 years ago. In many localities serew pines are left growing near coconut palms and another pandanus such as pandanus utilis is grown to make ‘ Vacoa bags.” These remarks justify the desirability of giving much attention to the life history of insects when a new jungle is cleared more or less completely for the creation of ‘coconut plantations or when intercalary crops are grown between the palms.. It is not easy in the tropics and especially in small colonies where little capital is available to fumigate or spray with insecticides plants of huge size amidst boulders and in the jungle. In the majority of cases one has to rely on the efforts of nature and look for remedial measures by means of natural parasites. Another method of combatting pests in the tropics is to provide the plant under cultivation with manure which renders it more resistant to disease. This is becoming more and more evident in Seychelles where at last the practice of manuring has been taken up vigorously. Seaweeds are collected and even cropped on the reefs, cattle manure, guano, ash, chemical salts and last but not least. distillery refuse of cinnamon leaves are all used. The occurrence of diseases and pests on coconuts has been found to be so closely connected with neglect of plantations that in many localities, the land is now cultivated, drained, terraced, green manured, and the trees are walled in to prevent the entrance of the melitomma beetle or its escape from attacked trees. Also in the coral islands the hard pan is broken through at great expense belore manuring with phosphatic guano rich in organic matter. It has been realised that the occurrence of pests is an index of the state of neglect of plantations and as the crop of coconut palms varies very considerably from 10 to 200 nuts per tree per annum it is, after all, better to have to deal with one good tree than with 20 bad ones. ~The state of neglect of plantations in former times, however, seems to have produced an unexpected result, viz., that a special strain of coconut palms has apparently been evolved which is

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