Rat Damage to Coconuts in Fiji Part 1 Assessment of Damage
| dc.contributor.author | Williams, J.M. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-09-12T09:23:50Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2014-09-12T09:23:50Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1974 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The amount of rat damage to immature coconuts was assessed by two methods. The first involved fortnightly recordings of all coconuts produced, including those rat damaged, at representative sites for up to three years. The second method attempted to utilise decay characteristics of rat damaged coconuts as a basis for projecting spot counts of damaged coconuts to long term estimates of damage. Damage was concentrated on coconuts aged three to six months with most of the damage being inflicted by Rattus rattus. Damage varied considerably from month to month with seasonal trends in damage being apparent at only one site. Rats clearly favoured particular palms in all plantations, resulting in over 75% of the damage being confined to 30% of the palms. Those selectively attacked were randomly distributed within the survey plots and did not produce significantly fewer harvustable coconuts than those palms seldom attacked. Tall palms, i.e. over 15m incurred less damage than those under 10 m. Decay characteristics of rat damaged coconuts proved to be of limited value as a basis for projecting spot counts to long term losses, but counts of green damaged coconuts accurately reflected the previous 33—35 days damage. Overall production losses (derived after adjustments for known palm compensation for damage) were relatively low; being 2.7, 2.0 and 1.3 nuts per palm per year during 1970, 1971 and 1972. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | PANS Vol.20 No.4, 1974 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/5675 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.title | Rat Damage to Coconuts in Fiji Part 1 Assessment of Damage | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |