Rice gall midge

Caused by: Orseolia oryzae
Problem Category: Sucking insect pest
Symptoms: Light yellow coloured Maggots are headless, legless and remain inside the basal part of the stem and injecting a toxin cecidogen resulting in the formation of a hollow tubular gall known as “silver shoot” which resembles onion leaf. Affected tillers do not bear panicles. It is observed, early infestation of this pest encourages profuse tillering and stunted growth of the plants. Damage varies between 8 to 50%.
Comments: It is common during tillering stage of rice crop.The adult is a small fly like a mosquito with yellow brown body and long dark brown hairy legs. The adult female is bright red with a reddish brown abdomen. Eggs are laid at leaf base singly. Larva is the damaging stage. Pupation occurs in the silver shoot.
Management: 1. Avoid mono cropping. 2. Early planting and synchronous planting. 3. Growing tolerant / resistant varieties like vasundhara (RGL-2538), Srikakulam Sannalu(RGL-2537) Vamsadhara(RGL-11414), satyaranjan, chandrama, jayamati, kapilee, ketekijoha. 4. Spraying 5% neem seed kernel extract to repel adults.
Control: Spray 5% Neemastram or vavilaku(Vitex) kashyam to control the gall midge damage