Location
The ground rat is a grassland animal. Sugarcane is tall tropical grass which can provide the ground rat with a good home. Ground rats prefer to live in grassland, sugar cane crops, drainage areas, open forest, sugar cane crop edges, swamp, closed forest and grazing land.

Damage
Ground rat populations which are not kept in check can cause large yield loss to sugar cane. Ground rat damages affects yield in two ways:

Bitten stalks - reduces the tonnes of cane/ha.
Secondary attacks by other pests - rat bitten cane is prone to attack by bacteria and fungi, and by insects such as sugar cane weevil borer. This can result in a 15 - 20% loss of CCS. Losses of 10 - 30% can result from a combination of lost tonnes and reduced CCS. Ground rats usually damage the lower 20cm of the cane. If the cane is lodged ground rats are capable of damaging the whole stalk.

Description
The ground rat is a small dark rodent with a coarse, spiny coat which is dark-brown to black in colour with grey streaks.Hairs as long as 45mm are present on the rump. The belly fur is a light greyish-yellow. The tail is dark brown to black, usually shorter than the head and body, and has pronounced scale rings. The ears are a light grey colour, and females have five pairs of teats.

Life Cycle
The ground rat makes many burrows with tunnels 5-10 cm in diameter, often sloping downwards to a nesting chamber about 15cm in diameter containing a bed of dry grass. Burrow systems are usually no more than 40cm deep. Rats are using the burrows if "fresh" soil is found around the entrance holes. In cane fields the burrows often follow cane rows, while in non-crop areas holes are found near grass clumps, stumps, fence posts and large stones. As many as 23 rats may occupy a single nest. The breeding season starts between November and March, usually when grasses and weeds appear in and around crops. Breeding stops around July regardless of the weather. Ground rat population begin to spread out and numbers drop as harvest progresses. In their search for food and shelter many animals leave harvested blocks and live in non-crop (harbourage) areas where grasses and weeds are plentiful. Common non-crop areas are drainage lines, fence lines, disturbed creek and river banks. These areas support those rats which will breed up to infest and damage next season's sugar cane crop.

Control
Ground rats are native to Australia and are protected under the Nature Conservation Act 1992. Baiting alone will not control rats because of their high breeding potential. The Intergrated Pest Management program focuses on stopping populations from reaching the point where they cause significant economic losses.