Strategies for Combating Rodent Pests on Farmland in Pakistan

Rodents are serious pests to agricultural cropping systems and cause severe economic losses, both in rural and urban environment in Pakistan. The economic losses are reported in millions of dollars. As for public health; the... [ view full abstract ]

Rodents are serious pests to agricultural cropping systems and cause severe economic losses, both in rural and urban environment in Pakistan. The economic losses are reported in millions of dollars. As for public health; the rodents act as vectors in the transmission of various diseases, especially Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Leptospira interrogans and Toxoplasma gondii. Rodents are inflicting with human interests by causing direct losses to stored food and field crops. Rodents are considered as major vertebrate pest and damage many crops in Pothwar plateau. On average, they cause 4-10 % losses to the standing field crops (mainly wheat and groundnut) at their various growth stages. Farmers bears millions of losses due to pest rodent. 

The field trials were conducted in district Rawalpindi of the Pothwar area, Pakistan. Trapping and live burrow counts of rodent species were carried out at sowing, tillering and maturity stages of wheat crop. Guava was used as food bait on locally manufactured snap traps for trapping the rats in agro-ecosystems in the three study areas. The preference was presumed to be related with particular taste and smell of the guava. The results of burrows density revealed that maximum number of burrows was recorded at maturity stage of the crop due to higher surface activity of the rodent species because of favorable climatic conditions, good shelter and plenty of food. Wild vegetation plays important role for providing shelter/cover to the rodent during non-crop season. These vegetation provide shelter and food to rodents when there is no cultivation or at early stage of the crop growth. So, trapping was carried out at field boundaries during this stage to check the impact of trapping between treated and reference/control site. The outcome of this study is that the farmers should periodically carry out rodent trapping at the beginning of each crop season and during non-breeding season of the rodent pest when the populations are low in numbers and restricted under crop boundary vegetation, particularly during very hot and cold months. It could be benefit for the farmers and also reduce the operational cost in terms of time and money.