This is also a time when many people are grappling with pest control solutions, especially as drug resistance becomes more prevalent.
Resistant pests are gradually becoming a constant obsession of rice farmers.
Headaches with drug-resistant pests
According to statistics from the Plant Protection Office, more than 300 types of pests are resistant to pesticides through a wide variety of mechanisms. Chemical resistance is affected by factors such as age, season, weather, frequency of chemical exposure, population density, toxicity and toxicity of chemicals.
Pest resistance is the ability of pests to resist a greater amount of a drug than the initial application due to frequent and repeated use of the drug. Remarkably, this ability can also be passed on to the next generation at the birth of the next individual, an evolutionary form of nature.
The situation of pesticide-resistant pests greatly affects agricultural production and cultivation, leading people to increasingly need to use a larger amount of pesticides, which is both costly and harmful to the environment, affecting the health of users. In addition, the increasingly diverse species of resistant pests make it very difficult for farmers to control pests in the field, resulting in major damage to crops.
Leaf-rolling caterpillars are gradually becoming the main concern of people
Especially among the resistant pests, especially for rice farmers in the Mekong Delta and across the country in general, leafrollers are common pests and the main concern of farmers’ relatives at this time.
In the Mekong Delta, farmers currently spray about 6-8 times per rice crop and this frequency may be even more dense if the situation of resistant pests increases.
Leafrollers worry about rice farmers.
Leaf rollers are rice pests that have extremely serious consequences on rice plants, causing damage from the moment the rice plant is sowed until the rice is ripe. They often grow and thrive in periods of cool climates with high humidity. Leaf rollers have a life cycle of about 30-35 days, usually appear 6-7 generations per year and do the most damage to the rice in the crop.
The mechanism of damage is quite simple, the worm scratches the leaf parenchyma, leaving a white cuticle along the leaf veins. Then the caterpillar rolls the rice leaves into a tube and lingers in it. At this time, the rice is severely damaged by the later flowering, which can affect the yield because the leaf roller reduces the photosynthetic capacity and increases the proportion of flat seeds.
What is the solution if leafrollers are also gradually becoming resistant to drugs?
Leafrollers are among the pests that cause serious damage and gradually become resistant to pesticides.
Over the years, insect resistance has been formed due to the accumulation and inheritance of resistance genes over many generations, besides the main reason being the lack of appropriate application of resistance management solutions such as early spraying and ensuring dosing or rotation of active ingredients to affect the mechanism of action on leafrollers diversify, the most important factor is the lack of investment in new technology to create a strong mechanism of action, strengthen the leafrollers in new forms, and create a loophole for the natural development of this leading rice pest.
If drug resistance persists for a long period of time and no remedial action is taken, this leads to an increase in resistance and more damage to farmers’ crops. It’s about time farmers had a new option with more advanced technology and a breakthrough mechanism of action to destroy the resistance of rice sheet rollers.
Syngenta Vietnam Company is a leader in the pesticide industry investing in new product research and development and is always a pioneer in bringing new innovations, solutions and products to the market Helping farmers feel more confident about protecting crops and improving quality of life. The breakthrough solution that Syngenta is aiming to bring to market in the near future is the Plinazolin® technology.