kashif javaid

2011-ag-3368Amir shehzad

2011-ag-3137

Department of Forestry, Range and Wildlife Management

University of Agriculture Faisalabad

Bio-Economic impact of vertebrate pest on crops with special reference to Rodent pest in Pakistan

Vertebrate pest are of great concern world wide and in Pakistan too.

Among these, rodent are the most important pests at the World level.

They are carrier of a number of human diseases and cause heavy losses to field crops and stored grains (Ashfaq et al., 2001).

Introduction

Among the field rats, mole rat and bandicoot rat are most famous for digging burrows. The burrows are found in and along the edges of the crop fields of wheat, sugarcane, rice, etc.

Rodents have three major impacts:

1) The first is the important damage they can cause to field and horticultural crops, forest plantations, and vegetation of range lands.

2) The second is the losses they cause post harvest to stored food and feed products.

What type of damage they cause?

The third and often unseen impact is on the health of small farmers and urban communities, and hence influences productivity out-put of humans and health-care cost.

NOTE:

Blind mole-rats ‘resistant to cancer’(lung & Breast cancer)

http://pakistan.onepakistan.com.pk/news/health/242823-blind-mole-rats-resistant-to-cancers.html

Blind Mole Rat

The first ever case of rodent damage to crops in Pakistan was reported in 1956 from Sialkot District.

A survey carried out revealed that the quantity of grains (rice and wheat) lost due to rodents was enough to feed that population of district (0.3 million) for 10 years.

Major cases of rodent damage to crops and natural resources in pakistan

As long ago as 1927,Wagle drew attention to the occurrence of rice-field rats in lower sindh. At that time losses in many areas were said to range from 10 to 50%.

Which is approximately equal to 15.75% reduction in rice yield.

Wagle (1927) found 600 ear heads of rice in some burrows studied in lower Sindh.

Fulk (1977) found 93 kg of hoarded rice per hectare in Sindh which was equal to 10% of the total yield of the crop.

Prakash (1976) reported that up to 450 kg/ha of various grains may be damaged due to food hoarding.

In Pakistan, rain fed as well as winter irrigated wheat crops are highly exposed to rodent attack in both Punjab & sindh.

Fulk and Akhtar, also report that many rice fields in thatta district during 80’s which were completely harvested by rats.

Complete & partial destruction of millet and gowar crops has been recorded from tharparkar.

In 1989 outbreaks of Hairy-footed gerbil was recorded by the staff of VPCL (vertebrate pest control lab), Karachi.

As a result of this 13,748 & 3,995 ton of millet and gowar were lost due to rodent damaging in districts (Khokhar & Rizvi, 1991).

Forest resources, also, are influenced badly by multiple wildlife species.

The most important aspect of porcupine damage, in Pakistan, occurs in forestry & reforestation areas, Nawaz & Ahmed (1974) calculated a loss of 1,36,136 cft of wood in Changa manga plantations.

Impact on Forest Resources

Value of which was estimated at PKR. 0.9 million annualy greave and khan (1978) estimated the annual value of porcupine damaged trees in changa manga plantations around U.S$ 25 per hectare.

Khan et al. (2000) estimated that 108 kg of potato seed per hectare are 18% of the total seed cultivated was lost due to porcupine damage.

One of the best estimates of rodent impact post-harvest is from a detailed study of rodent pest in central Punjab in Pakistan, and the result from this study to national level.

it was estimated that 0.33 billion metric ton (rice, maize, wheat) worth of US $ 30 million were consumed by house rats in the villages of Pakistan every year (Mushtaq-UL-Hassan 1992).

The study did not consider the impact of rats in and around major cities.

Recently (2005-2007), scientist of VPCL, karachi implemented an ALP project on the management of rodents infesting date-palm orchards at NOK_KUNDI and mushkale, Balochistan.

The study revealed rodent damage of 22.1% to trees in Nok-Kundi, 20.1% in turbat, and 13.4% in panjgour.

Alone in Nok-kundi, the yield of infested trees reduced by 25-50% resulting in the harvest of low quality yield.

Economic losses of PKR.5.33 million were calculated only in Nok-Kundi which indicated the seriousness of the problem.

Ashfaq, M., MA Saleem and F. Ahmad. 2001. Grain

storage management (in Urdu). Uni. Agri. Press.

296pp. Harrison, D.L. 1972. The mammals of Arabia. Vol.I II,

Ernest Benn Ltd. London. Husain, S.R. 2005. External structure of Nesokia indica

burrows and their distribution in cropland and some

non-cropland sites. Pak. J. Agric. Sci., 42(1-2): 78-

81. Lay, D.N. 1967. A study of mammals of Iran resulting

from the street expeditions of 1962-63. Fieldiana

Zool., 54: 1-282.

Reference:

Poche, R.M., P. Sultana, S.J. Evans, M.E. Haque, MA

Karim and MA Siddique. 1982. Nesokia indica

from Bangladesh. Mammalia, 64: 547-549.

Roberts, T.J. 1977. The mammals of Pakistan. Ernest

Benn Ltd. London

Samiet, A.C. 1978. Laboratory studies on Nesokia

indica, working paper, vertebrate pest control

centre. Univ. Campus Karachi.

Wagle, P.V. 1927. The rice rats of lower Sind and their

control. J. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., 32: 330-338.