Pests and plant diseases or what are known as Plant Pest Organisms (OPT) are one of the risks faced by agribusiness activities.
Uncontrolled pests can negatively impact production and cause death of cultivated plants.
IIntegrated Pest Control (HPT) is a careful approach to available pest control methods and their integration that is able to suppress the development of pest populations and keep pesticides away to economically acceptable levels in order to reduce risks to the environment and human health.
Pests and plant diseases or what are known as Plant Pest Organisms (OPT) are one of the risks faced by agribusiness activities. Uncontrolled pests can have an impact on decreasing production to the death of cultivated plants.
At the same time, the use of hazardous chemicals to control these risks can also pose a threat to biodiversity. Therefore, FAP Agri is involved in environmentally friendly development methods and approaches to integrate pest monitoring and control through the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practice approach.
The IPM system that is carried out combines natural control, biological control, and technical control (biological and chemical). Technical control is a last resort if natural and biological control is not able to significantly reduce the pest population. Natural and biological control utilizes natural enemies (predators, parasitoids, and entomopathogens) which are able to naturally suppress pest populations and reduce the risk of environmental damage due to the use of pesticides.
Owl (Tyto alba) is a potential predator of rats in oil palm plantations. This predator is able to reduce rat attack on young plants to below 5%. Meanwhile, the critical threshold for rat attack on oil palm plantations is 10%. In general, the prevention of rat attack in oil palm plantations is carried out by using rodenticides (rodenticides). We currently have the owl breeding in several garden centers in North and East Kalimantan.
We also plant beneficial crops such as Cassia cobanensis, Antigonon leptopus and Turnera subulata which attract predators of oil palm leaf-eating pests such as bagworms and nettle caterpillar. Other biological agents such as Cordyceps mushrooms are also used during pest outbreaks (caterpillars). We also use Trichoderma as a bio-fungicide to control Ganoderma. We monitor our use of pesticides and ensure they are permitted by the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture. Various types of pesticides with different purposes are available in solid or liquid form, and their use depends on the needs.
Owl Captivity
Owl breeding in one of FAP Agri’s plantation concessions as an effort to control the biological attack of rats.