Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
MC Nagaraju, M Siddu, C Bindushree, MT Sanjay, Aravinda, MN Shivakumara and BN Balaji

Abstract:
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food at least half of the world’s population and is approximately 148 million ha of land globally. Out of more than 100 species of insects attacking rice, stem-borer is reported to cause economic crop losses up to 60 percent. Pesticides are commonly used to control rice stem borer and ensure maximum yield with high market value. However, the accumulation of these chemical inputs in crop fields increases risks to biodiversity and human health. Keeping in view the deleterious effects of chemical pesticides, there is a need to evaluate alternate methods to manage the rice stem borer effectively without any menace to the ecological niche. We examined the incidence of insect pests and their management with botanicals and chemical insecticides and their influence of on beneficial insects (mesofauna population) in rice ecosystem grown with different farming practices viz., Organic production system, Zero Budget Natural Farming ZBNF, Recommended package of practices and Farmers practices along with Absolute control in rice at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, VC Farm, Mandya during kharif 2019-2022. It was evident from the pooled mean data that among various treatments, the least percent white ears (14.64% white ears) were registered in natural farming practice with hand weeding and UAS, (B) recommended package of practices (14.73% white ear) followed by organic production system (16.10% white ears) natural farming practice (19.31% White ear) andfarmers practices (22.17% white ears) as against highest incidence in absolute control (38.61% white ears). The pooled data over four season ecosystem organic farming practices excelled first by recording maximum number of arthropod population (26.20 arthropods per 400 gm of soil). Considering the efficacy of eco-friendly nature of organic production system and ZBNF are the effective management of the yellow stem borer.