[01] Muhammad Sarwar, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture & Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

This document is meant to outline the rodent’s damage to several crops, components of a rodent control plan, and to guide growers to use local resources to help them to formulate such strategy. Rodents, as one of the major important vertebrate pests are directly related to the production, storage and processing of the agricultural crops and their eventual utilization by man and his livestock for food, fiber and protection. The rodent’s damage to several annual and perennial crops includes invasions of cereal, vegetable, fruit, plantation and other cash crops. The life profile of rat and mouse pests is very strange, their life span is about twelve to eighteen months, these breed constantly all over the year, male and female are sexually mature at six to eleven weeks, and females give birth to five to twenty young at one time and reproduce four to six times within a year. So, the rodents should not be tolerated in and around crops because several effective and low hazard options are available to eliminate rodents. Growers in susceptible areas should implement a rodent management plan to maintain yield and minimize damage to plantation. The most important steps in controlling of rodents involve sanitation, exclusion and elimination of their home or nest sites. These methods of control should be taken place before any population control efforts are made. Rodent control using Integrated Pest Management (IPM) may rely that the county should monitor the facility and use several techniques to reduce the favorable environmental factors that promote rodents and their ability to thrive (food sources and harborage). Integrated pest management approach to rodents management minimizes reliance on chemical pesticides. The three basic rules of a control program are to deny pests access to the establishment; deny pests food, water and a hiding or nesting place; and work with qualified pest management professionals to eliminate pests that are in the establishment. For effectiveness, any rodent control plan must be diligent and consistent in a time frame determined by the extent of the rodent pressure in the general cropping areas.

Crop, Pest, Rat, Mouse, Muridae, Control, Agricultural Pests, Rodent

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