Farmers lose an estimated average of 37% of their rice crop to pests and diseases every year. In addition to good crop management, timely and accurate diagnosis can significantly reduce losses. If you are facing a problem in your crop and need help with diagnosis, seek advice from a professional.
The best control for pests and disease problems is prevention. To limit pest and disease damage:
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Diseases can be spread between fields or between seasons if you do not take proper precautions. After harvest, be sure to clean the harvesting equipment to prevent the spread of infected plants.
Some diseases can live on the stubble between seasons and infect a healthy planted crop. In general, plowing after harvest removes stubble that serves as remaining food and shelter for pests, especially insects. In cases where your field was infested, you should remove all stubble from the previous season.
Clean the bunds and patch all rat holes on bunds and around your field. If there are nearby fallow fields or forested areas, you may want to have a community rat control effort or put up trap barriers to keep rats from damaging your crop .
Ratooning (allowing your crop to sprout and continue growing after harvest) is not recommended because diseases and insect hosts can be sustained from season to season. It is best to clean the field of any crop and leave it fallow for a few weeks to a few months before planting again.
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[restab title=”Step 2″]Certified seed is recommended but if you can’t get certified seed, use clean seed that does not have any discolored seeds, weed seeds or other rice varieties mixed in.
Use short-duration and resistant cultivars to decrease insect pest populations. In short-duration cultivars, insects cannot compete as many generations, so populations may not reach damaging levels. Resistant varieties experience less feeding damage on their leaves and stems, which means less entry points for bacteria and fungal diseases.[/restab]
[restab title=”Step 3″]Planting at the same time (or within a 2 week window) as the neighboring fields can help to minimize insect, disease, bird, and rat pressure on individual fields.[/restab]
[restab title=”Step 4″]High nitrogen can increase susceptibility to certain pests and diseases that is why specific fertilizer recommendations is very important.[/restab]
[restab title=”Step 5″]Overuse of pesticide is common among farmers and can actually lead to pest outbreaks. Natural insect enemies of the rice pests are also killed when pesticides are applied and this can lead to an outbreak of other rice insect pests. Other ways to encourage natural pest enemies are to allow plants on the bunds and between fields to flower (yellow and white flowers attract natural enemies).[/restab]
[restab title=”Step 6″]Generally, a rice crop can recover from early damage without affecting yield. The diseases section show the information on specific diseases that require early management. [/restab]
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Store grain at moisture content below 13-14%, preferably in an airtight container. Clean the grain before storing so it is free of dust, chaff, and excessive broken grains. The storage area should be clean and have a dampproof floor and waterproof walls and roofs. Ideally, the storage area should be sealed to keep out rats and birds and to allow for fumigation if necessary. Stack bags on a pallett with at least 50cm of space on every side of the stack.
Do not store grain for more than 6 months. Do not store new grain next to old grain that is infested with insects. Store grain as paddy or rough rice because it is less prone to insect attack than milled rice. Parboiled rice is also less susceptible to damage than raw rice.
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Source of Article: http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org
