Owls, Cobra Snakes or Liquid Smoke to Repel Mice at Palm Oil Plantations?

Mice are animals that disrupt various human activities so they must be expelled or killed. Many stories from farmers who experienced crop failure due to rampant rat pests. Likewise in palm oil plantations, rats will damage the palm fruit. Biological countermeasures are mostly carried out, namely with owls and cobra snakes. While other efforts that can be done is by liquid smoke. Aside from being used for fertilizer, liquid smoke can also be used to repel these mice. A strong aroma and an acidic nature will make the mice away from the palm oil trees that have been given liquid smoke. The longer the effect of liquid smoke on the palm oil tree the longer the mice away from the palm tree.

Liquid smoke does not harm humans and can be produced in large quantities. Besides that liquid smoke also comes from biomass (pyrolysis) so that it is an environmentally friendly chemical and from renewable sources. Empty bunches or EFB which have generally not been utilized by palm oil mills can be used for the production of liquid smoke. In addition to liquid smoke, biochar is also produced which is also very useful in the palm oil plantations, for more details, please read here. Production of liquid smoke and biochar from EFB will also be a solution to handling solid waste in the form of empty bunches. The production of biochar and liquid smoke for large scale can be done only with continuous pyrolysis units, for more details, please read here.

While when biochar and liquid smoke are used in oil palm plantations, the pyrolysis product in the form of syngas and biooil can be used for boiler fuel. When syngas and biooil are used as fuel, palm kernel shells and a number of mesocarp fibers can be sold or exported like CPO. PKS (palm kernel shell) or shell can be exported directly to Japan or Korea. Whereas mesocarp fiber can be made pellets or briquettes before being exported. Production of pellets or briquettes from mesocarp fiber is almost the same as the production of wood pellets or sawdust briquettes, for reference can be read here and here.

Back to the laptop. So the production of liquid smoke from pyrolysis of empty palm bunches is more likely to be a solution to overcome rat pests in addition to various other advantages for palm oil plantations and mills. In addition, liquid smoke can also be used for fertilizers and is not harmful. Even to optimize the control of rodent pests is very possible with a combination of liquid smoke with owls and cobra snakes.