Investigation of the ability of botanical derivatives and microbial bio- pesticides to manage major insect pests in rice farming

Abstract

The bio-efficacy study of various plant derivatives and microbial insecticides showed that the lowest incidence of dead heart (4.52% per hill) and white ear heads (5.27% per hill) occurred in the NSKE treatment. Its performance was statistically comparable with the combinations of Karanja leaf extract- Neem oil-Bacillus thuringiensis, Neem leaf extract-Eucalyptus oil-Beauveria bassiana, Bitter gourd leaf extract-Neem oil-Bacillus thuringiensis, and B. thuringiensis-Karanja leaf extract-Neem oil. For rice leaffolder, the pooled mean of three sprays indicated that NSKE was the most effective treatment, recording only (3.91%) leaf damage, followed closely by Karanja leaf extract-Neem oil-B. thuringiensis (4.12%). In the case of rice butterfly larval incidence, the combination of Eucalyptus oil- Beauveria bassiana-Neem leaf extract was most effective (3.53%), followed by Neem leaf extract- Eucalyptus oil-B. bassiana (3.63%).