Effect of Habitat Manipulation on Incidence of Stem Borer and Earhead Bug in Rice Ecosystem Chavan D.M.1,*, Desai V.S., Lad D.U.2,** 1Department of Agriculture Entomology, College of Agriculture, Rajmachi Tal.-Karad, Dist-Satara, Maharashtra, India 2Department of Agriculture Entomology, LMK College of Agriculture, Hingangaon (Kh) Tal.-Kadegaon, Dist-Sangli, (MS), India, Pin-415305 *email: dhananjaychavan8989@gmail.com
**dhairyashil04@gmail.com
Online published on 2 January, 2017. Abstract The experiment on effect of habitat manipulation on incidence of stem borer and earhead bug in rice ecosystem were undertaken at the Agronomy farm, College of Agriculture, Dapoli during Kharif season, 2014. The experiment was carried out in randomized block design with three replications and eleven treatments (ten with nectar rich flowering plants on bunds and without nectar rich plants as control) to evaluate the effect of nectar rich flowering plants for conserving the natural enemies in rice ecosystem and their impact on rice pests. The results of the field studies carried out to record the incidence of stem borer and earhead bug in rice ecosystem. The stem borer incidence wasappeared from 4th week of August to 1st week of October. The infestation was gradually decreased from week 2 (1st week of September) to week 6 (1st week of October) and then pest was disappeared. Overall percent infestation of rice stem borer insixweeks was in the range of 0.07 to 1.30. The treatments Cosmos, Gomphrina, Marigold, Sesamum, Niger, Mustard and Ekdandi as nectar rich plants on rice bunds recorded minimum stem borer infestation of 0.07, 0.08, 0.18, 0.22, 0.23, 0.30 and 0.58 per cent, respectively, and were significantly superior over rest of the treatments and at par with each other. The appearance of rice earhead bug started from week 6 (1st week of October) and the incidence was noticed up to week 9 (4th week of October). Overall per cent infestation of rice earhead bug in four weeks was in the range of 1.70 to 6.39. The treatments Sesamum and Niger planted as nectar rich plants on bunds were foundto be the best treatments by recording minimum infestation (1.70 and 1.77%). Top Keywords Rice, Habitat manipulation, stem borer, earhead bug. Top |