China Central Government Encourages to Control Rice Stem Borer with Vetiver.

The website of China Central Government issued the following statement by Mr. Xu Sunda, the Xinhua News Agency on 7 April 2019 in Hangzhou.

"The Zhejiang Provincial Plant Protection and Quarantine Station issued official document titled "Complete Green Protection Technology of rice Insect - rice striped stem borer - Chilo suppressalis." It provided farmers with Complete Green Protection Technology, including agricultural protection, ecological regulation, biological control, physical and chemical control.

It suggests that rice should be planted in large areas, instead of in small pieces of field with different rice vareities as Bridge Field, and it recommends farmers to plant vetiver grass along border roads and field bunds. The vetiver clumps should be planted spacing 3-5m in order to effectively attract female adults to lay eggs in vetiver plants to reduce their eggs in rice.

Rice striped stem borer (Chilo suppressalis Walker) is one of the most important insect pests of rice in China, and its damage commonly led to significant yield loss. The resistance to insecticides became higher and higher in recent years, because of long term and incorrect use of insecticides. The pest seems hardly to controlable by insecticides. In the area where single-harvested rice is intercropped with double-harvested rice (a year), the damage by stem borer is more serious, So farmers started to plant more one-harvested rice, which seriously influenced food security.

To solve this problem, the crop protection institutions paid attention to control rice stem borer comprehensively, through improving strategies of pest management and technology extension. They promote "Green Plant Protection" and have got outstanding results. According to statistics the injury degree of stem borer has reduced in Zhejiang Province in 2018. Compared with that in 2017, the injury rice area and the loss of rice yield caused by stem borer decreased by 14.98% and 15.61% respectively in 2018.

Since 2007, directed by Prof. Lv Zhongxian of Zhejiang Academy of Agriculture Sciences, systematic and comprehensive researches have been done on stem borer control by planting vetiver, which concerned almost all important aspects and received great achievements."

More details of the research is at: http://www.vetiver.org/CHN_JIA-2019%20Vetiver-Lu%20YH-.pdf