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- 2005
- Winter
- Tiny rice pest discovered
Boris Castro, LSU AgCenter entomologist, has discovered a new pest of rice – a tiny fly.
And Howard Cormier, LSU AgCenter county agent in Vermilion Parish, said the insect’s damage was devastating on two fields he inspected last year.
Castro said the pest has so far been referred to as the rice whorl maggot because of its similarity to a fly in Asia that afflicts rice fields there. But he said a taxonomist at the Smithsonian Institution has concluded this fly probably is a new, unidentified species.
Castro said research this year will include spraying different insecticides, which are already labeled for other rice pests, on test plots where the insect is found.
Bruce Schultz
(This article was published in the winter 2005 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.)
The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture