Abstract

Amongst the major insect pests occuring on Rice crop in Hyderabad State, Hispa (Hispa armigera Ol.) occupies the most important place. It occurs on both the abi seasonal crop which is sown in the months of June-July and tabi crop which is sown in the months of January February. Apart from Hyderabad State, Hispa also occurs as a pest of rice crop in West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bombay, Orissa, Madras and Andhra States in the Indian Union. Padwick (1948) in a review on plant protection and food crops in India mentions that it is present throughout the year in Assam and Bengal and that in 1946 it took a heavy toll of 20,000 acres of crop in Madhya Pradesh, causing an average loss of over 20% in yield. Outside India, the pest is found on Rice Crop in the Republic of China, Formosa, Indonesia and Pakistan. According to Chu (1938), hispa destroyed 3,000 acres of early rice in Pho-lo district in Kwangtung province in China in 1932. Recently, Shen and Kung (1954) have reported that serious out breaks of Rice hispa have occurred in the past few years in Taiwan island, infestation occuring on tens of thousands of hectares.

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