Quantifying the Role of Natural Biological Control in Rice - A Case Study in a Farmer's Field

Abstract

An On-farm trial was carried out to quantify the natural enemy incidence and its impact on pest incidence on BPT-5204 variety of rice in a farmer's field with and without insecticidal applications, during Kharif seasons of 1995 and 1996. The results revealed that need based protection involving single insecticidal application and schedule based protection involving three applications of insecticides were superior 10 natural biocontrol involving no insecticidal application throughout the crop season, in checking pest incidence. However, higher net returns can be obtained by resorting to need based application of insecticides which also results in maintenance of pest population at low levels and build up of natural enemy populations supporting natural control.