Impact of GroMore Crop Care Programme on Arthropod Diversity with Special Reference to Natural Enemies in Rice Ecosystem

The result of four season field trials laid out to study the impact of GroMore crop care programme in rice arthropod diversity, is reported. The chemicals in GroMore were applied at various phenological stages of crop growth. Pre and post treatment counts of pest and natural enemies were observed from 20 randomly selected plants per plot on 23 DAT (days after treatment at early tillering), 36 DAT (peak or active tillering), 49 DAT (maximum tillering), 56 DAT (panicle initiation), 63 DAT (spikelet differentiation stage), 70 DAT (meosis) and 97 DAT (heading stage). GroMore recorded the lowest dead heart (1.2–2.6 per cent) at peak tillering stage and white ear (1.3–3.0 per cent) damage by stem borer as against untreated control (8.6 and 7.8 per cent) and farmers practice (7.7 and 6.7 per cent); low silver shoot damage by gall midge (0.6–3.2 per cent) as against untreated control (8.5 per cent) and farmers practice (7.4 per cent). The population of sucking pests viz. green leaf hopper (GLH) (0.2 hill⁻¹), brown plant hopper (BPH) (0.3 hill⁻¹) was low in GroMore when compared to untreated control (1.3 and 2.0 hill⁻¹) and farmers practice (1.0 and 1.6 hill⁻¹). The natural enemies population viz., mirids (0.6 hill⁻¹), spiders (1.0 hill⁻¹), coccinellids (0.9 hill⁻¹), microvelids (14.0 10 L⁻¹), gerrids (14.0 4 m⁻²), hydrometrids (8.5 4 m⁻²) and notonectids (15.0 10 L⁻¹) was on par with untreated control (0.8 hill⁻¹, 1.8 hill⁻¹, 1.7 hill⁻¹, 18.0 10 L⁻¹, 18.0 4 m⁻², 14.2 4 m⁻² and 18.7 10 L⁻¹) respectively. GroMore recorded higher grain yield of 7.25 t ha⁻¹ as against 4.75 t ha⁻¹ in untreated control. It was inferred that the GroMore crop care programme does not have any adverse effect on natural enemies besides keeping the pest population and damage below the threshold level.