Rice earhead bug: Leptocorisa acuta
Symptoms of damage:
- Sucking the sap from individual grains, which are in milky stage.
- Individual grains become chaffy
- Black spots on the grains at the site of feeding puncture.
- Buggy odour in rice field during milky stage
Identification of insect pest:
- Egg: Are circular, brownish seed like 2mm long laid in clusters in two rows along the midrib on the upper surface of the leaf blade
- Nymph: First instar is small, 2mm long, pale green in colour which grows to deepen green through different instars
- Adult: Adults are greenish yellow, long and slender, above ½ inch in length with a characteristics buggy odour
Management:
ETL: 5 bugs/100 earheads at flowering and 16 bugs/100 earheads from milky stage to grain maturity
- Dust any one of the following at 25 kg/ha twice, the first during
flowering and second a week later:- Quinalphos 1.5 D
- Methyl parathion 2% DP
- KKM 10 D (The new KKM dust formulation consists of 10% of Acorus calamus rhizome powder and 90% of flash which is a waste product from Thermal Power Station)
- Spray any one of the following twice as above
- Malathion 50 EC 500 ml/ha
- Neem seed kernel extract 5% 25 kg/ha
- Notchi or Ipomoea or Prosopis leaf extract 10%
Source-
- TNAU Agritech Portal
