Silica Amendment Enhances Resistance of Rice to Yellow Stem Borer Scirpophaga Incertulas (Walker) with no Detrimental Effect on Non-target Organism Eisenia fetida (Savigny)

Yellow stem borer (YSB) Scirpophaga incertulas , is the major pest of rice. Even after the repeated insecticidal applications, farmers found it difficult to manage YSB due to its cryptic behavior and concealed feeding habit and moreover there is no resistance variety available for this pest. Therefore, an attempt was made to find an alternate strategy to manage YSB through the amendment of silica fertilizer, potassium silicate was explored in the present study. Boring success, mortality rate, and growth rate of YSB larvae were affected by soil silica amendment. Boring success was reduced to the extent of 40–60% and impaired larval growth was observed in Si treatment compared to untreated control. Si treatment reduced the larval survival ability by 20–30% and increased the relative growth rate over the control. Likewise, Si treatment induced an average of 60–70% more mortality in the amended plants compared to control plants. Additionally, Si amendment was found not to have a detrimental impact on earthworm and plant germination rates. Silica amendment, especially for susceptible rice cultivars that are presently cultivated by farmers in the field, may act as a viable component for integrated management of yellow stem borer with a reduced effect on the non-target organism. Furthermore, silica amendment improves rice seedling germination and growth, so both natural and synthetic silica amendments in soil can be a viable option for rice IPM.