Rice earhead bug: Leptocorisa acuta

Symptoms of damage:

• Nymphs and adults suck 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: 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 dark green through different instars
• Adult: Greenish yellow, long and slender, above ½ inch in length with a characteristic 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 10 kg/ac twice, the first during flowering and second a week later:
• Quinalphos 1.5 D
• KKM 10 D (KKM dust formulation consists of 10% of Acorus calamus rhizome powder and 90% of fly ash which is a waste product from Thermal Power Station)
• Spray any one of the following twice as above

  • Malathion 50 EC 200 ml/ac
• Neem seed kernel extract 5% 10 kg/ac
• Notchi or Ipomoea or Prosopis leaf extract 10%