The Incidence of Rhinoceros Beetle Outbreak in Public Coconut

Plantation in Tanjung Simpang Village, Indragiri Hilir, Riau Province

Saripah Ulpah

, Nana Sutrisna

, Fahroji

, Suhendri Saputra

, Sri Swastika

Department of Agrotechnology, Universitas Islam Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia

Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology (BPTP) Riau

Keywords:

Oryctes Rhinoceros, Outbreak, Breeding Site, Replanting, Coconut Plant.

Abstract:

Indragiri Hilir is a Regency in Riau Province where about 70% of its population depend on coconut plantation.

In 2018, a devastating outbreak of a coconut pest, Oryctes rhinoceros has been reported from several locations.

The pest explosion in Tanjung Simpang Village, Pelangiran sub-district, has aroused conﬂict between coconut

palm farmers and the oil palm plantation company in the area regarding the source of the pest infestation. An

independent scientiﬁc investigation was conducted to address the problem. Steps carried out including survey,

interview, ﬁeld investigation, and trapping. Survey was carried out to determine the center of infestation by

evaluating damage intensity through interview and ﬁeld assessment by direct visual evaluation and with the

aid of drone. Spotting of breeding site was done in the vicinity of plant infested area. Digging and delving

breeding sites were done to assess the beetle and its larvae. Trapping using pheromone trap was intended to

evaluate the beetle distribution. Interview was perfomed both to the coconut farmers and and the company

staff to investigate the infestation chronology and activities in the oil palm plantation. The ﬁndings indicated

through the research were then revealed to the both parties and also to the authority as elucidated in this paper.

1 INTRODUCTION

Coconut plantation plays the important roles for the

economic, social and culture of most people in Indra-

giri Hilir Regency. Being “the tree of life”, where

every part of the plant possesses economic value, co-

conut from this area not only fulﬁlls the domestic de-

mand but also is potential as export commodity.

There are several factors that have been reported

to act as rectricting factors of coconut production in

Indragiri Hilir (Muhartoyo, 2017). One of them is the

population explosion of a pest, the Rhinoceros beetle;

Oryctes rhinoceros. The beetle is known as a global

invasive pest particularly in coconut and oil palm

(CABI, 2018; Manley et al., 2018; Sherley, 2000). In-

festation of this pest is very destructive because could

result in the plant to die, both for the young plants

and the old ones (CABI, 2018; Chalapathi Rao et al.,

2018). The population outbreak could be triggered

by signiﬁcant change of the environment particularly

when ample breeding sites are available (Abidin et al.,

2014; Balitka, 2010; Bedford et al., 2014; Marshall

et al., 2017).

In Indragiri Hilir, massive infestation of this pest

has been reported occurred in several areas. The in-

festation is estimated up to 1975.5 ha; 1192.5 being

moderately infested and 783 ha severely damage.

Pest outbreak in public coconut plantation in Tan-

jung Simpang has provoked conﬂict because the farm-

ers claimed that the source of the pest outbreak was

the replanting activity conducted by the oil palm com-

pany in the vicinity. Since the oil palm company

denied the claim, Indragiri Hilir Regency authority

ordered scientiﬁc investigation to address the issue;

which was agreed by both parties. Hence the scien-

tiﬁc investigation was carried out.

2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 Time and Research Site

Study was conducted from January to May 2019.

Investigation was done in Tanjung Simpang Vil-

lage, Sub-distrct Pelangiran in Indragiri Hilir; on both

public coconut plantation and company oil palm plan-

tation.

Ulpah, S., Sutrisna, N., Fahroji, ., Saputra, S. and Swastika, S.

The Incidence of Rhinoceros Beetle Outbreak in Public Coconut Plantation in Tanjung Simpang Village, Indragiri Hilir, Riau Province.

DOI: 10.5220/0009145801510154

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Science, Engineering and Technology (ICoSET 2019), pages 151-154

ISBN: 978-989-758-463-3

151

2.2 Survey

Survey activity was conducted through interviewing

coconut farmers whose plants affected by the infes-

tation of Rhinoceros beetle, regarding their sociocul-

tural and understanding of the pest infestation. Oil

Palm plantation ofﬁcials were also interviwed regard-

ing their activity that might have affected the pest out-

break. Related information was also obtained from

village ofﬁcials.

2.3 Field Investigation

In public coconut plantation, ﬁeld investigation was

done by assessing the plant damage through direct vi-

sual evaluation and with the aid of drone. Spotting

breeding site was also perform in the vicinity by dig-

ging and delving the potential breeding site then col-

lecting and counting the speciments. Sistematik as-

sessment was conducted in every 100m distant from

the boundary of oil palm plantation, through visual

damage evaluation and trapping using the synthetic

pheromone of the beetle at 150m interval.

In the oil palm plantation, investigation was car-

ried out by spotting the possible breeding site of the

beetle. Field assessment was also perfomed to eval-

uate the condition of the ﬁeld and the new replanting

oil palm.

2.4 Disclosure of the Reseach Findings

After twice visits and ﬁeld assessment to the both

public coconut plantation and oil palm plantation,

data gathered then studied thoroughly. Supported

with ample scientiﬁc information to the data obtained,

the ﬁndings then formulated and presented to each

party and regency authorities.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 General Information about Tanjung

Simpang Village

Tanjung simpang village is located in Sub-district

Pelangiran with the area of 222 Km2 and inhabitate

by 16 726 people. Most of the people in this area de-

pend on coconut plantation. The distance of the vil-

lage to the sub-district capital is 60 km, while that

of from the regency capital is 80 km, however the

main transportation was through water that could be

reached in about 2 hour.

The oil palm plantation company is located adja-

cent to the village, covered 83 000 ha. The history

of oil palm ﬁrst planting was started in 1996 on the

land initially forest. Starting in 2015, the company

decided to replant the oil palm tree due to the poor

condition aggravated by the disease caused by Gano-

derma funggus. The replanting plan was conducted in

stages as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Replanting Stages Executed by Oil Palm com-

pany.

3.2 Results from Field Assessment

From ﬁeld observation it was found that infestation

ranged from 50 % to 100 %. Such massive dam-

age is imminent if Oryctes population outbreaks is

not suppressed immediately (Chung, 2012; Marshall

et al., 2019). The damage symptom caused by the

Rhinoceros beetle was very clear (Figure 2), which

were the fan like cut on the opened coconut leaf and

the holes at the base of coconut leaf midrib (ACIAR,

2017; Domberg, 2015).

The level of infestation affected by the distant of

the coconut palm plantation to the company oil palm

plantation. The severe damage was observed within

the area adjacent to and up to 100m from the company

oil palm plantation, then gradually decreased by the

increasing distance from the company oil palm plan-

tation. Photos captured with a drone also reveals the

phenomenon (ﬁgure 3).

Digging and delving of the potential breeding site

of the beetle revealed the present of the beetle and its

larvae (Figure 4).

All coconut trees found up to 1100 m from the

company oil palm plantation were attacked by the

beetle twith various intencity as shown in the Figure

Average number of beetles captured using

pheromone trap was also derceased by inreasing dis-

tance from the company oil palm plantation which

were 137, 88, 66 and 49 respectively for every 150

ICoSET 2019 - The Second International Conference on Science, Engineering and Technology

152

Figure 2: Symptoms of Oryctes rhinoceros infestation.

Figure 3: The condition of coconut plantation adjacent to

the company palm plantation.

Figure 4: The beetle and its grubs located in the breeding

site spotted in adjacent area to the company palm oil plan-

tation.

m interval away from the palm oil plantation. The use

of pheromone-baited trap could be used as a tool to lo-

cate the occurrence of the pest outbreak (Moolen and

Dowdy (2001, in (Ahmad and Kamarudin, 2011)),

besides to control the pest population (Allou et al.,

2006).

3.3 Other Findings

There are additional ﬁndings that could be taken into

account. Firstly, the chronology of the beetle infes-

Figure 5: Level of Rhinoceros infestation related to the dis-

tance toward the palm oil plantation.

tation symptoms (started in the end of 2017 and get-

ting severe by 2018) was synchron with the replant-

ing activity by the company. The life cycle of in-

sect such as this beetle vary greatly depending on

the food source and environmental conditions (Ka-

marudin et al., 2005; Khaliq et al., 2014; Kumashiro

et al., 2014). Nuriyanty et al. (2016) reported that the

life cycle of this beetle was approximately 4 months

in Purbalingga regency. Secondly, the replanting was

conducted due to the poor condition of diseased palm

oil tree caused by Ganoderma. According to Ka-

marudin and Wahid (2004), poor stand of palm trees

infected by Ganoderma could be a suitable habitat

for initial build up population of the beetle. Pasaribu

and de Chenon (2005) also highlighted the report by

PPKS (1996) emphasizing that replanting oil palm

previously infected by Ganoderma provided suitable

media for population build up of the beetle. Thirdly,

replanting provided abundant breeding sites for the

beetle (Abidin et al., 2014). Eventhough the company

ofﬁcials claimed that proper SOP for replanting had

been executed, remnant of the trunk was still found

consisting of the beetle and its grub. Fourthly, The

farther the location from the company palm oil plan-

tation, the lesser the infestation and also the fewer the

beetle captured; indicating the center of pest outbreak.

Fiftly, the legume cover crop planted which was in-

tended to further conceal the buried chipping material,

did not grow as expected. Vegetation such as legume

cover crop is crucial to suppress oviposition by female

beetle (Wood, 1969; Vargo, 2000), therefore could

break the insect cycle, (Clark, 2007). Lastly, the most

important step that should have been done but was ne-

glegted was anticipation, socialization and extension

to the society in the area that might have been affected

by replanting activity, since replanting site has been

widely known as breeding ground for this pest (Man-

jeri et al., 2014; PEI, 2019).

The Incidence of Rhinoceros Beetle Outbreak in Public Coconut Plantation in Tanjung Simpang Village, Indragiri Hilir, Riau Province

153

4 CONCLUSION

With the above data and ﬁnding, it was concluded

that the damage on the coconut plantation was re-

sulted by the infestation of Rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes

rhinoceros. The pest population outbreak was re-

sulted from replanting activity of the company oil

palm plantation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank Indragiri Hilir Regency Au-

thority for funding the study, and the Indragiri Hilir

Plantation Ofﬁce for the accompeniment of the ﬁeld

investigation.

REFERENCES

Abidin, C., Ahmad, A. H., Salim, H., and Hamid, N. H.

(2014). Population dynamics of oryctes rhinoceros in

decomposing oil palm trunks in areas practising zero

burning and partial burning. Journal of Oil Palm Re-

search, 26(2):140–145.

ACIAR (2017). Paciﬁc pests and pathogens. fact sheets no

108.

Ahmad, S. N. and Kamarudin, N. (2011). Pheromone trap-

ping in controlling key insect pests: Progress and

prospects. Oil Palm Bulletin, 62:12–24.

Allou, K., Morin, J.-P., Kouassi, P., N’klo, F. H., and

Rochat, D. (2006). Oryctes monoceros trapping with

synthetic pheromone and palm material in ivory coast.

Journal of chemical ecology, 32(8):1743–1754.

Balitka (2010). Pengendalian kumbang kelapa. Balai Pen-

gendalian Tanaman Palma, Menado.

Bedford, G. O. et al. (2014). Advances in the control

of rhinoceros beetle, oryctes rhinoceros in oil palm.

Journal of Oil Palm Research, 26(13).

CABI (2018). Invasive species compendium, oryctes

rhinoceros. cab international.

Chalapathi Rao, N., Snehalatharani, A., Nischala, A., Ra-

manandam, G., and Maheswarappa, H. (2018). Man-

agement of rhinoceros beetle (oryctes rhinoceros l.)

by biological suppression with oryctes baculovirus in

andhra pradesh.

Chung, G. F. (2012). Effect of pests and diseases on oil

palm yield. In Palm Oil, pages 163–210. Elsevier.

Domberg, M. (2015). Featured creatures:coconut

rhinoceros beetle. UF/IFAS. University of Florida.

Publication number:EENY-629.

Kamarudin, N. and Wahid, M. (2004). Immigration and

activity of oryctes rhinoceros within a small oil palm

replanting area. Journal of Oil Palm Research,

16(2):64–77.

Kamarudin, N., Wahid, M. B., and Moslim, R. (2005). En-

vironmental factors affecting the population density

of oryctes rhinoceros in a zero-burn oil palm replant.

Journal of Oil Palm Research, 17(N):53.

Khaliq, A., Javed, M., Sohail, M., and Sagheer, M. (2014).

Environmental effects on insects and their population

dynamics. Journal of Entomology and Zoology stud-

ies, 2(2):1–7.

Kumashiro, B., Hauff, R., Hara, A., Kishimoto,

C., and Ishibashi, Y. (2014). Coconut

rhinoceros beetle, oryctes rhinoceros (linnaeus)

(coleoptera:scarabaeidae). New Pest Advisory No.14-

01. Plant Pest Control Branch, Hawaii Department of

Agriculture.

Manjeri, G., Muhamad, R., and Tan, S. G. (2014). Oryctes

rhinoceros beetles, an oil palm pest in malaysia. An-

nual Research & Review in Biology, 4(22):3429.

Manley, M., Melzer, M., and Spafford, H. (2018). Ovipo-

sition preferences and behavior of wild-caught and

laboratory-reared coconut rhinoceros beetle, oryctes

rhinoceros (coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), in relation to

substrate particle size. Insects, 9(4):141.

Marshall, S., Moore, A., and Vaqalo, M. (2019). A new

coconut rhinoceros beetle biotype threatens coconut

and oilpalm in souteast asia and the pasiﬁc.

Marshall, S. D., Moore, A., Vaqalo, M., Noble, A., and

Jackson, T. A. (2017). A new haplotype of the coconut

rhinoceros beetle, oryctes rhinoceros, has escaped bi-

ological control by oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus and

is invading paciﬁc islands. Journal of invertebrate

pathology, 149:127–134.

Muhartoyo (2017). The investment opportunities in coconut

sector in indragiri hilir. Cocoinfo International, 24(2).

Nuriyanti, D. D., Widhiono, I., and Suyanto, A. (2017).

Faktor-faktor ekologis yang berpengaruh terhadap

struktur populasi kumbang badak (oryctes rhinoceros

l.). Majalah Ilmiah Biologi BIOSFERA: A Scientiﬁc

Journal, 33(1):13–21.

Pasaribu, H. and de Chenon, D. (2005). Strategi pen-

gendalian hama oryctes rhinocheros. Pertemuan tek-

nis kelapa sawit, PT Tolan Tiga Indonesia (SIPEF

GROUP), Sheraton Mustika Hotel. Yogyakarta.

PEI (2019). Masa replanting kelapa sawit rentan kumbang

tanduk. berita pei.

Sherley, G. (2000). Invasive species in the paciﬁc: a tech-

nical review and draft regionalstrategy. south paciﬁc

regional environment program (sprep). 190p.

Vargo, A. (2000). Coconut rhinoceros beetle (oryctes

rhinoceros). Agricultural Development in the Ameri-

can Paciﬁc (ADAP). 2000-4. ISBN 1-931436-07-3.

Wood, B. J. (1969). Studies on the effect of ground veg-

etation on infestations of oryctes rhinoceros (l.)(col.,

dynastidae) in young oil palm replantings in malaysia.

Bulletin of Entomological Research, 59(1):85–96.

ICoSET 2019 - The Second International Conference on Science, Engineering and Technology

154