Mealybug: Brevennia rehi
Symptom of damage:
- Large number of insects remains in leaf sheath and suck the sap.
- Plants become week, yellowish and very much stunted in circular patches.
- Presence of white waxy fluff in leaf sheaths
Identification of insect pest:
- Egg: The female lays numerous yellowish white eggs/ simply deposits nymphs in outer leaf sheaths.
- Nymph: The newly hatched nymphs crowded within the waxy threads for 6-10 h before they disperse to various parts of the same plant. The pale yellowish nymph is active and crawls about the plant for a while and settled itself on the plant/ stem and turns dark yellow after a day. Body gets covered with waxy material on second day.
- Adult: Nymphs and adults being wingless look alike. Females are reddish, oval, soft-bodied living in colonies inside the leaf sheath. Males are small, slender, pale-yellow, having single pair of wings and a style like process at the end of the abdomen but lack mouthparts. Males are seldom found in the colonies, so it reproduces parthenogenetically.
Management:
- Remove the grasses and trim the bunds during the main field preparation before transplanting
- Remove and destroy the affected plants
- Spray any one of the following
- Buprofezin (25 SC) @200 ml/ 200 lit of water for 1 acre
- Thiomethoxum (20 WDG) @100 g/200 lit of water for 1 acre
- Dimethoate (30 EC) 400 ml along with Azardiractin 1000PPM
Source-
- TNAU Agritech Portal
