Can Fish Control Planthopper and Leafhopper Populations in Intensive Rice Culture?

Abstract

Planthoppers and leafhoppers are important rice pests. We tried to find out whether a polyculture of silver barb, common carp and Nile tilapia could control hoppers in intensively cropped rice fields. We used the data of five rice-fish experiments conducted between 1995 and 1998 at the Co Do rice-fish research station, Can Tho province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Our results showed that the number of Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), Sogatella furcifera (Horváth), Nephotettix virescens (Distant) and Recilia dorsalis (Motschulsky) was the same in fields with and without stocked fish. We concluded that the three stocked fish species are not able to control hopper numbers. Other, predatory fish species might be more effective in hopper control.