RPWgroup : Message: Red Palm Weevil - alternative strategies

Dear Colleagues,

        My small environmental NGO was contacted by a local authority in southern Portugal last year about the Red Palm Weevil which entered the country two years ago and may already have killed several thousand palm trees here. Research led to the recommendations in http://www.aambiental.org/_en/PalmWeevil.htm which were based on the much-appreciated advice of a few of you and on conventional contact and systemic insecticides generally prescribed at the time.

        Since then a new nematode-containing product, Biorend, which claims the ability to replace systemics in the field has entered the market. Although a particularly tough locally-collected strain of Steinernema carpocapsć in a protective chitin-related polymer is used, what I have seen so far has not (yet) convinced me of the nematode's non-lab pursuit abilities. So we are reserving our judgement. But ultimately I hope to endorse something which will afford a sustainable solution allowing us, in poor as well as rich countries, to dispense altogether with industrial toxins.

        For this reason I would very much like the group's thoughts on another strategy that arose last week on discovering a sizeable number of mites (of the genus Tetrapolypus?) on an adult female weevil a neighbour brought me. These creatures are minuscule but VERY active and mobile and could, conceivably, serve as vectors of entomopathogenic fungi such as Beauveria or Metarhizium or, perhaps, the same toxic bacteria associated with Steinernema that render the nematode so lethal as long, of course, as the mite agrees with them.

        After all, my understanding is that there is apparently some level of symbiosis here: the weevil carries the mite around and its larvć present it with (previously digested or just shredded?) food; the mite cleans up in the grub's wake and thus reduces the likelihood of RPW disease. Since the arachnid(?) is far more mobile than Steinernema carpocapsć and lives in association with the larva, I wonder if it could be inoculated with a pathogen and then applied to infested palms where it would, I hope, promptly enter larval tunnels and start feeding (and killing the palm killers). I should note, if it isn't already apparent, that I am no specialist; so feel free to criticise.

        I look forward to opinions not only about this idea but also concerning the subterranean, generally static Steinernema's ability to pursue tunnelled larvć in a very different milieu.

        Kind regards,

        Antonio Lambe

                                   ACCIÓN AMBIENTAL (Perú)
                       ACÇĂO AMBIENTAL para o BARLAVENTO
                  APARTADO 373 PORTIMĂO - 8500 PORTUGAL
     Tel/Fax: +351 282 442 345 Correio electrônico: info@...

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