Insect pests on date palm fruits after harvest and durning storage and their control methods (Review article)

Abstract

Date palm trees Phoenix dactylifera are economically important because they produce fruits that have high nutritional and economic value. These fruits are infested by 31 insect species belong to three insect orders after harvest, during transportation and storage. These orders include Coleoptera (has highest number of insects that infest date palm fruits), Lepidoptera, and Diptera. There are seven main insect species that are commonly infesting the date fruits including saw-toothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis, red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, confused flour beetle, T. confusum, rusty grain beetle, Cryptolestes ferrugineus, almond moth Cadra cautella, raisin moth C. figulilella and Khapra beetle Trogoderma granarium. These insects cause direct damage to dates through feeding, or indirect damage caused by the presence of the remnants such as skins on dates, which reduce the nutritional and marketing value of date fruits. Many control methods have been used to reduce the impact of these insects on dates, however, chemical control is the most successful, especially fumigation with phosphine, due to the high effectiveness of this fumigant with little or no residual effect. Pesticides of plant origin have also been successfully used as fumigants, and the results have shown the effectiveness of these materials in eliminating various pests according to previous studies. Generally, chemical control is the most used method to control these pests, but its impact on the environment and human health must be evaluated. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a review of date insect pests and the methods that used to control them.