Crop raiding and management of Funambulus palmarum in cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) plantations of Western Ghats of Karnataka, south India

Chakravarthy, AK and Thyagaraj, NE and Kumar, LVijay and Girish, AC (2008) Crop raiding and management of Funambulus palmarum in cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) plantations of Western Ghats of Karnataka, south India. In: Current Science, 95 (7). pp. 907-911.

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Abstract

Funambulus palmarum has evolved crop-raiding habits to exploit food resources in agricultural ecosystems like cardamom plantations in the Western Ghats, southern India. Gut content analyses reveal that these squirrels principally feed on cardamom during its fruiting period. They prefer old, yellow, mature capsules emanating the typical cardamom odour. At other times of the year, the squirrels consume termites, ants, ground beetles, bugs, soil insects, other arthropods, flower buds, fruits and seeds of wild plants, including weeds. The timely picking of cardamom capsules, clean cultivation, overlapping panicles, mulching (for small areas, usually <0.25 ha) and trapping substantially reduced feeding damage by squirrels. Integrated efforts are needed to protect crops like cardamom while sustaining ecologically important rodents like squirrels.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Sciences
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords:	Crop raiding;management;Funambulus palmarum;cardamom;Western Ghats.
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Sustainable Technologies (formerly ASTRA)
Date Deposited:	18 Dec 2008 10:32
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:52
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/16485

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