Replanting Palm Oil and Coconut Destroying Beetles

Rhinoceros Beetle (Oryctes Rhinoceros)

At present it is estimated that millions of hectares of palm oil plantations need to be replanted immediately (replanting). Potential tens of millions of tons of palm oil trunk can be obtained as biomass waste from these plantations. Processing palm oil trunks to become biomass fuels such as pellets (OPT pellets) and OPT charcoal pellets is a positive idea that should be done. Palm oil mill effluent or POME (palm oil mill effluent) can be used as an energy source or electricity source through biogas powerplant for the processing of these palm oil trunk. But if the palm trunk are not cleaned from the plantation so they decay and rot, then the palm trunk will become larval media. The larvae then become beetles which damage not only the palm oil plantations themselves but also the coconut plantations or palmae botanical group in general. There are a number of areas that have palm oil plantations that are side by side or close to coconut plantations, for example in Riau, so that the beetle is destroying coconut plantations. The urgency of processing old palm oil trunk at these locations is higher than other locations.

Palm trunks left behind in the plantation become breeding grounds for horn beetles

Coconut plantations damaged by horn beetles

The productive age of palm oil trees is around 25 years, while coconut trees can reach 80 years. That means it can be said that the age of a coconut tree is more than 3 times that of a palm oil tree, so that it is unfortunate if the replanting activity actually damages the coconut plantation which has a longer productive age. It also means that when planting coconut trees the benefits should be felt in the next 2-3 generations, while palm oil is only one generation. The factor of preserving ecosystem sustainability should also be considered in replanting palm oil plantations especially those close to coconut plantations. Replanting palm oil plantations should also be interpreted as harvesting biomass as a potential raw material to produce value-added products such as oil palm pellets (OPT pellets) and charcoal pellets (OPT charcoal pellets/carbonised pellet).