Population dynamic and effect of rainfall on rhinoceros beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) in oil palm plantation at Pembangunan Pertanian Melaka Sdn.Bhd / Nurul Syuhada Mohamad

Oil palm is one of the major crop in Malaysia that give high profit to country and largely contribute more to the Malaysia economy development. However there are various obstacles like pest and disease that limits the production of oil palm and its sustainability. Oryctes rhinoceros commonly known as the rhinoceros beetle is one of the dominant destructive pest that known to inflict serious damage on immature oil palm trees and cause significant yield loss of oil palm. Oryctes will readily migrate and infest an area of oil palm once replanting have conducted where there is abundance of oil palm trunk chips. This study focuses on the dynamic population of the beetle in Pembangunan Pertanian Melaka and its relations with rainfall factor. The aggregation pheromone (ethyl-4-methyloctonoate ) has been used during this study where it functions for mass trapping and monitoring beetles population in PPMSB. Pheromone trap was placed about 1 trap for every 5 hectares in immature palm while 1 trap for every 2 acres in the nursery area. The result obtained shows that there is no difference in result population of beetles in immature palm and young seedlings (P > 0.603). The result also showed that there is very strong relationship between rainfall and beetles population (0.7275 ).There is not significantly relationship between rainfall and beetle population in PPMSB.This study shown that rainfall was not the main factors that influences the dynamic population of Oryctes rhinoceros in PPMSB as there are another factor that more dominant such as temperature, air humidity soil ph, and others.