Paddy Pests
Brown Plant Hopper
Symptoms
- Nymphs and adults congregate at the base of the plant above the water level.
- Affected plant dries up and gives a scorched appearance called “hopper burn”.
- Circular patches of drying and lodging of matured plant.
- It transmits grassy stunt, ragged stunt and wilted stunt diseases.
- Honey dew is secreted by nymphs and adults which causes sooty mould at the base.
Identification
- Egg: Eggs are laid in a group of 2 to 12 in leaf sheath (near the plant base or in the ventral midribs of leaf blades). White, transparent, slender cylindrical and curved eggs are thrust in straight-line in two rows. (They are covered with a dome-shaped egg plug secreted by the female. Only the tips protrude from the plant surface).
- Nymph: Freshly hatched nymph is cottony white, 0.6 mm long and it turns purple-brown, 3.0 mm long in the fifth instar.
- Adult: Adult hopper is 4.5-5.0 mm long and has a yellowish brown to dark brown body. The adults exist in two forms, macropterous and brachypterous. Macropterous adults or long-winged have normal front and hind wings, whereas brachypterous forms or the short-winged have reduced hind wings. A prominent tibial spur is present on the hind leg
Management
ETL: 1 hopper/ tiller in the absence of predatory spider and 2 hoppers /tiller when spider is present at 1/hill.
- Avoid close planting and provide 30 cm rogue spacing at every 2.5 to 3.0 m.
- Control irrigation by alternate wetting and drying.
- Avoid excessive use of nitrogen
- Release of natural enemies like Lycosa pseudoannulata, Cyrtorhinus lividipennis adults (200-250 bugs/ha) during the peak incidence of BPH.
- Set up light traps during night or yellow pan traps during day time
- Drain the water before use of insecticides and direct the spray towards the base of the plants.
- Apply Neem oil 3% 6 lit/ac or Azadirachtin 0.03% 400 ml/ac
- Spray any one of the following insecticides.
|
Insecticides |
Dosage |
|---|---|
|
500ml/acre |
|
|
1 ml/lit |
|
|
200g/acre |
|
|
200g/acre |
|
|
500g/acre |
