Assessment of risks and potential of injection techniques in integrated programs to eradicate the red palm weevil: review and new perspectives

Introduction . Plants develop mechanisms that allow them to compartmentalize injuries that they suffer during their life. In trees, pruning and injection treatments must be used in accordance with precise rules to reduce risks resulting from the injuries created. Sealing in palms . Palms, contrary to widespread belief, are quite capable of “healing” injuries (sealing); because of an anatomy quite different from trees, the sealing process in palms is much simpler. Compartmentalization of injection wounds . The controversy on the use of injection in trees is due essentially to initial mistakes that have then been rectified. Injection in palms against the red palm weevil . For palms, for decades, this technique has been employed without problems and with great efficiency against various pests, including Rhynchophorus ferrugineus , the red palm weevil (RPW). Its use has been reserved for exceptional situations either to face abnormal pest proliferation, uncontrollable by other techniques, or to implement eradication programs. Integrated eradication program . In such a program, the main aim of injection treatments is preventive. With long-persistence insecticides, the number of treatments could be greatly reduced. The resulting savings in time and money would enable the organization of the treatments of all the palms located in an infested area, and consequently the rapid eradication of the pest. New perspectives . We established that insecticides applied by injection were capable of protecting palms with only two or even one treatment per year. These results suggest a radical improvement in programs to eradicate RPW, while considerably reducing the risks to health and the environment compared with spray treatments.