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"Arthropod biodiversity and abundance are fundamental components of rice ecosystems that have resistance and resilience to pest attacks. They provide farms with ecosystem services, such as resistance to pest invasions and regulation of pest populations that prevent pest species from increasing to levels that can cause economic loss to farmers."

-The Hainan Project-

 

Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

"A common question is how do we assess the success of IPM? The criteria for evaluation should be based on behavioural changes in farmers: how they approach problems in their fields, regardless of whether these are insects, diseases, weeds, water, fertiliser, or varieties or soils... to judge if indeed farmers have benefited from an IPM programme where they desire to improve themselves through increased income, to have self confidence and to become effective citizens, contributing to the well-being of the community and the country. "

-Prof. Peter Ooi-

 

 

 

 

 

"Most tropical rice ecosystems are endowed with rich biodiversity, which helps provide vital biological control services. Highly intensive production systems, however, harm the rich habitat biodiversity and, coupled with heavy chemical inputs, compromise ecosystem services and thus make rice production systems vulnerable to invading pests such as planthoppers and leaffolders."

-Rice Planthopper Project-

 

Our friends tell us...

Exciting findings for the entomologist in you! 

 

Results  of a study by Zhu et al (2013) suggest that sesame flowers have more positive effects in enhancing other hymenoptera parasitoids than in increasing pest species. This provides further support for the use of sesame in ecological engineering practices.

 

Read their paper here!

 

 

Research conducted by Heong et al (1998) has shown that the common leaf-feeding insects, such the leaffolder, whorl maggot (Hydriella philippinensis) and army worms like Spodoptera lituru that often attack the rice crop during the vegetative stages are rarely in sufficiently high densities to reduce yield. Even when all hills were damaged by whorl maggots, no yield loss could be detected (Viajante and Heinrichs, 1986; Shepard et al., 1990).

 

Read their paper here!

 

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