Plant Protection Department, National Research Centre,Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: Sadeksalem2002@yahoo.com

Accepted 18 May, 2015

The date palm is an important part of the religious, cultural and economic heritage of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and all countries of the Middle East. In Egypt, a national campaign for control of RPW by containment /destruction of infested plants, injection and spraying of biochemical and chemical pesticide treatments in heavily and newly infested areas, and the use of pheromone traps for monitoring and reduction of RPW populations has been only partially successful in controlling its spread. Detection of low level RPW infestation is essential for early intervention, confirming eradication of infestations and reducing the spread of RPW. Despite the importance of detection, few effective tools and methods exist for detecting low number of infested trees. Scent dogs were developed as a tool for detecting RPW in recent years. However, there are no data demonstrating the reliability of trained dogs under natural field conditions. The difference in the number of infected trees and discovered dogs (33 trees discovered by dogs; 18 trees discovered by naked eye) equal to 15 trees and the efficacy of dogs reached 54.54% (2013).The results in the second year (2014) compared with those of the first (2013) year, show that the efficiency of dogs in search of palm trees newly infected trees has reached 63.85%. We evaluated the accuracy of three dog detection teams in naturally infested trees. The main problem when using dogs is the difficulty to discover the top infestation. The data suggest that more research is needed to develop it and understand factors affecting the accuracy of dog’s teams for RPW detection in naturally infested trees. At the moment a combination of methods and technologies is required to form an optimal solution.

Keywords:Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Oliv.;Phoenix dactyliferaL.; dogs; early detecting of infestations.

How To Cite This Article:

Salem, S.A. Accuracy Of Trained Dogs For Early Detection Of Red Palm Weevil, RhynchophorusferrugineusOliv. Infestations In Date Palm Plantations. Swift Journal of Agricultural Research 1(1), pp. 001-004.