Control of rice insect pests has been the central problem among the farmers in Asia who depend primarily on rice as a subsistence crop. In Japan, for example, the endemic damage caused by the rice borers Tryporyza incertulas and Chilo suppressalis and the sudden occurrence of epidemics of the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, were the major causes of loss in rice yield during the pre-war period. Dropping whale oil onto the surface of irrigation water to fight N. lugens was practiced 250 years before the advent of synthetic insecticides. Control of rice borers by cultural practices (e.g. shifting transplanting dates, flooding fallow fields, hand removal of egg masses, and digging out or burning stubbles, in association with the use of light traps and conservation of egg parasites) was commonly used 100 years ago in Japan (94). Since then, massive reports on rice-pest control as well as on biology of the pests have been accumulated, particularly in Japan. More or less comprehensive reviews on the general subject are already available (e.g. 19, 25, 27, 3 1 , 79, 84, 94, 1 1 5, 165). Also, with regard to specific tactics in relation to rice-pest management, some detailed accounts have already been published on biological control (1 14, 143, 209), varietal resistance ( 152, 162, 163, 167), insecticides, (19, 38, 73, 8 1 , 89, 201), and cultural practices (64, 75, 144). Therefore, with this article I neither review all papers on the subject nor review all current research. Instead, I intend to bridge gaps such as the one between theory and practice in rice-pest management, as well as the one between temperate and tropical areas in terms of accumulated data con cerning a few selected groups of rice pests.
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Feb 1, 1979
+ 3
Open Access