Assessments and identification of major insect pests on sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) in the field at Darasalaam district, Somaliland

A field survey was carried out in 2024 to assess major insect pests of sweet orange in Darasalaam district. Among three extensive sweet orange-growing villages namely Maluugta, Horri-Haadlay, and Kal-Qoray were selected. A total of 214 sweet orange orchards were assessed and the study applied a purposive sampling technique for both qualitative and quantitative approaches. In order to quantify qualitative phenomena related to the ranking of the common insect pests on sweet orange orchards, indexing was carried out. The obtained data was coded and subjected to SPSS version 20. The result showed, that a leaf miner, mealy bugs, brown scale insects, citrus black flies, fruit-sucking moths, and pysllids were identified as major insect pests on all range farms. These major insect pests were ranked by individual respondents of farmers with 6 as the highest rank and 1 as the lowest rank. Weightage was given for the ranked position as 1.6, 1.1, 0.79, 0.42, 0.20, and 0.06 for first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and six positions respectively. Likewise, according to major reasons for incidence, climate change received an index of 1.40, placing it in the first rank, followed by poor management practices, lack of knowledge, weak planting material and poor soil fertility status were indexed 0.41, 0.19, 0.08 and 0.02, respectively. This study provides benchmark information about major insect pests of sweet oranges in the field in order to develop an effective and safe insect control strategy for the orange farms in Darasalaam district.