Tuesday 22 July 2014

Integrated Pest Management - Enemy's Enemy is my Friend - Snakes


In our Agriculture for Everybody blog series, we are going to see how the proverb (in action) is useful to a farmer.


The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) uses the proverb in its fullest form.




There are few things that we can do to ensure that our friends (like Snakes, Owls, Bats, Chameleons etc) are able to live in the farm.
  1. Conducive Environment - By providing shelter and proper nesting facilities, we can create a conducive environment for them to survive and reproduce.
  2. Provide Helpers - Helpers here means providing "T" perches for birds, sticks for Spiders to spin their webs etc enable them to help us better.
  3. Do Nothing - When we come across our friends in our farm, if we do not threaten them in any way or kill them and just leave them to mind own their business will help us to prosper and reap rich benefits in the long run.
Snakes help us by controlling the rodents (rats) in the farm.  This act will help us in the initial stages of the crop as well as in the advanced stages of the crop thereby increasing our productivity.

Monkeys are a menace in the farm and they eat coconuts, fruits, vegetables, fruits etc.  If Snakes are in the farm, monkeys get scarred and they do not come down to the ground and over a period of time they will never visit the farm again.

Similarly, Squirrels are also afraid of the snakes and they will not visit our farm once they see the snakes.

1 comment:

  1. Barn Owls: Rodent and Gopher Control
    The barn owl has been around for the last 26 million years and its importance to agriculture in California is just coming to the forefront. It is one of the most skilled hunters of rodents in North America. It does not have to see its prey to make a kill. Its face is a dish shape, similar to a satellite dish, and the ears are asymmetrical so it can locate rodents such as gophers or mice rustling around for food under 16-inch-tall grass, then swoop down and make the kill.

    REX ABRAHAM from bizbilla.com

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