Symptom of damage:
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Large number of insects remains in leaf sheath and suck the sap.
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Plants become week, yellowish and very much stunted in circular patches.
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Presence of white waxy fluff in leaf sheaths. The infestation is referred to as ‘Soorai’ disease.
Identification of insect pest:
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Egg: The female lays numerous yellowish white eggs/ simply deposits nymphs in outer leaf sheaths.
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Nymph: The newly hatched nymphs remain are crowded within the waxy filaments 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 settles itself on the stem and turns dark yellow after a day. Body gets covered with waxy material on second day.
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Adult: Nymphs and adults being wingless look alike. Females are reddish, oval, soft-bodied and 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 reproduction is mainly through parthenogenesis .
Management:
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Remove the grasses and trim the bunds during the main field preparation before transplanting
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Augment bio-control agents like coccinellids, spiders in the rice field.
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Remove and destroy the affected plants
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Spray any one of the following
- Buprofezin (25 SC) @ 200 ml/ ac
- Thiamethoxam 20 WDG @ 100 g/ ac
- Dimethoate (30 EC) 400 ml/ ac along with
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| Symptom of Mealybug Infestation |
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