Press Release Bayer workshop for Brown Plant Hopper management in rice

Press Release

Bayer workshop for Brown Plant Hopper management in rice

Raipur, Chhattisgarh, May  2018: Rice is a staple food crop for majority of India. To ensure food security for the country’s growing population, it is important to increase rice productivity. As a leading player in hybrid seeds and crop protection solutions,Bayer works closely with rice farmers to improve rice yields and quality.

In Kharif 2017, rice farmers in major rice growing belts of India faced one of the most severe infestations of Brown Plant Hopper (BPH), which is the most destructive pest in rice fields. Unlike other pests, BPH strikes very late, when the paddy crop is already 80-90 days old and in the final grain-filling stage. Hopper burn causes drastic decline incrop yieldsand can even destroy the entire field, depending on the degree of Infestation. Even the grain quality of the final produce is impacted, as the infested grains tend to be ill-filled, light-weight and chaffy.

Though there are many chemical solutions available to control BPH, none have been able to control the insect effectively in cases of medium to heavy infestation. The usual practice is to spray when the insect build-up has already happened. As an alternative approach, Bayer developed Arize AZ 8433 DT, a first-of-its-kind dual trait hybrid rice seed with strong inbuilt tolerance to both, Brown Plant Hopper (BPH) and Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB). Since its launch in 2017, the cultivation of Arize AZ 8433 DT has expanded tocover more than 11,000 acres in major rice growing areas of India.

But BPH continues to be one of the biggest challenges for rice farmers in Chhattisgarh. To showcase effective solutions for BPH managementand address farmers’ concerns, Bayer organized a one-day workshop at Raipur, which was attended by nearlyfifty rice farmers. Many of the attending farmers at the workshop had witnessed the performance of Arize AZ 8433 DTin Kharif 2017 and shared their success stories with other farmers.

The workshop also saw active participation from key officials representing the State Department of Agriculture and scientists from the Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (IGKV), Raipur. The key dignitaries included: Mr. Gayaram, Joint Director of Agriculture; Mr. Deepak Kumar Naik, Sub-Divisional Agriculture Officer, Department of Agriculture, Chhattisgarh; Dr. Narendra Pandey, HOD Agronomy, IGKV; Dr. DK Rana, HOD Entomology, IGKV and Mr. YR Patel Programme Head, All India Radio. All stakeholders present at the event appreciated Bayer’s interventions to help rice farmers in Chhattisgarh increase rice yields and thus generate better farm incomes.

About Arize AZ 8433 DT

In the event of a BPH and BLB attack, Arize AZ 8433 DT from Bayer offers a yield advantage of upto 20 to 30 percent over other susceptible open-pollinated varieties (OPVs), where yield losses could be upto 100 percent. Besides superior yield attributes, another advantageof cultivating Arize AZ 8433 DT includes a significant saving on pesticide application.A single round of spraying pesticides costs Rs. 500-600 per acre. Even with moderate infestation, rice farmers spray three to four times, depending on the incidence of BPH. With Arize AZ 8433 DT, farmers are advised to scout their fields periodically and go for one spray, only if the BPH count exceeds economic threshold levels, or if hopper burn damage is observed in adjoining fields.