With the onset of harvest season, crop protection experts have advised farmers to clean up grain spills to prevent rats from habituating the field.
Ulysses Duque, crop protection expert at Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), said rat population increases during harvest season as the rodents multiply rapidly when food sources are plenty.
Studies on rat ecology found that female rats can give birth to 120 puppies in a cropping season. They are pregnant for 21 days and mate again the day after they give birth.
To control rat population, Duque urged neighboring rice tillers with about 10 hectare-contingent field to practice integrated rat management, which include synchronous planting, field sanitation, and keeping irrigation banks less than 20-centimeter wide to prevent rats from building nests.
Duque said fields of farmers implementing eco-friendly and proper rat management can still be invaded by rats from neighboring fields as these rodents are highly mobile.
“We encourage communities to act together as rat infestation damages crops by 10 percent or higher and decreases yield by 2.5 percent,” he said.
He discouraged farmers from using rodenticide as rat baits and instead recommended field sanitation as the most active and sustained control measure. He also said that neighboring farmers should start controlling rats during the land preparation while their population is still low. [PNA]
“Poisoning does not yield much good result because it is used when rats have already grown in number. Poisoning is not also recommended as rodenticides are lethal to humans and non-target animals,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Grant Singleton, rodent expert and coordinator of International Rice Research Institute-Irrigated Rice Research Consortium, is promoting the community trap barrier system (CTBS), an environment-friendly and low-cost technology that capitalizes on the rat’s behavior of entering holes and running along paddies searching for food. (PNA)
