Ear head bug

• Sucking the sap from individual grains, which are in milky stage.
  
• Due to de-sapping, grains show brownish discoloured patches on the husk.
• Individual grains become chaffy and erect panicles.
• Black spots on the grains at the site of feeding puncture.
• In the case of heavy infestation, the whole ear head may become devoid of mature grains.
• Buggy odour in rice field during milky stage.
• Obnoxious odour eminates on disturbing the bugs.

Both adults and nymphs do the damage. The nymphs start feeding 3 to 4 hours after hatching. They feed on the leaf sap near the tip / on milky sap in developing spikelets at milky stage. Sucking of the milky sap causes ill-filled / partial filled and chaffy grains. . They omit bad smell hence they are called Gundhi bugs. Serious infestation can reduce the yield by 50%. The straw gives off-flavour that is unattractive to the cattle.

• Egg :
  Eggs are circular, brownish seed like, 2 mm long, laid in clusters in two rows along the midrid on the upper surface of the leaf-blade.
  
  
• Nymph :
  First instar is small, 2 mm long, pale green in colour, which grows to deep green through different instars.
  
  
• Adult :
  Adults are greenish yellow, long and slender, above ½ inch in length with a characteristic buggy odour.

• Strict vigilance is necessary at milky stage.
  
  
• Cultural control measures include the removal of alternate hosts such as grasses on bunds, early planting, and the use of late-maturing cultivars.
  
  
• Keep the field and bunds free of weeds and grasses.
  
  
• Netting and handpicking the bugs reduce their numbers.
  
  
• Putting attractants such as arasan or anything with an odor like dead snails or rats can easily capture rice bugs in the field.
  
  
• Coarse-grain and bearded cultivars may be resistant to the rice bugs.

• ETL : 5 bugs/100 ear heads at flowering and 16 bugs/100 ear heads from milky stage to grain maturity
  
• When the bug is seen in large numbers apply one of the following insecticides at 25 kg/ha twice, the first during flowering and second a week later.
  
• KKM dust formulation consists of 10% of Acorus calamus rhizome powder and 90% of fly ash. This dust formulation repels the rice earhead bug.
  
• Since the occurrence of the bug coincides with the flowering stage, application of the insecticide may be done either before 9 a.m. or after 3 p.m. so that fertilization of the flowers is not adversely affected.
  
• Spray any one of the following twice
  Fenthion 100 EC @ 500 ml/ha (or) Malathion 50 EC @ 500 ml/ha
  
  

• Among the biological control agents, small wasps parasitize the eggs and the meadow grasshoppers prey on them.
  
  
• Both the adults and nymphs are preys to spiders, coccinellid beetles and dragonflies.
  
  
• A fungus infects both nymphs and adults.

Botanical Methods:

• Use any one of the following :

     Neem seed kernel extract 5%@25kg/ha
     Notchi leaf powder extract 5%
     Ipomoea leaf powder extract 5%
     Prosopis leaf powder extract 5%