Red Palm Weevil

The date production sector suffers from many challenges that limit its development, and the red palm weevil constitutes the greatest burden on it, as the caused by these weevils were estimated at more than $ 2 billion annually and these losses were the result of the inability of farmers and agricultural engineers to detect the presence of weevil except in advanced stages of its life and at a stage where the damage caused by its existence cannot be treated, Its presence causes weakness in the tree that leads to a decrease in the productivity of the tree and ends with its death.
It is also known that combating it with the widespread methods of injection or spraying pesticides significantly affects the quality of the crop. Dates have always been a staple food for many countries, and according to the data of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the global date palm production covers an area estimated at more than 1.09 million hectares. The total production is more than 8.5 million tons annually, while there are about 5,000 varieties of date palm across the world. The cultivation of palm trees globally is particularly concentrated in the Asian region, which accounts 55.8% of the world production, then Africa with 43.4 percent of the production. The Arab region accounts for more than 77% of date production, which is about 6.6 million tons annually, and there are about 160 million palm trees in the region.
The date palm and its investments have become a major sale in the economy of most date producing countries, whether it is the final product of local consumption or for the purpose of export, and from this point of view, the production of dates has the merits and international quality standards that must be available so that we can trade our dates globally in an economically and achieve the desired commercial return Especially since our countries in the Middle East are the largest producers of varieties global demand.
The methods currently adopted in detecting the presence of red palm weevil are expensive, slow and useless, and this is what made the idea of early detection of the presence of red palm weevil in trees very important and attract the attention of international agricultural organizations.