Rice plant structure and growth stages. Insect pests of rice. Soil pests. Pests at the vegetative stage. Pests at the reproductive. Rice diseases. Weed pestes of rice. Identification and ecology of common weeds in rice. Methods of wees control. Biology and management of riceland rats in Southeast Asia. Management in Southeast Asia. Cultural control. Resistant rice varieties. Diseases races and insect biotypes. Biological control of rice insect pests. Parasistas. Predators. Pesticides. Integration of control meanures for all rice pests. Implementation of integrated pest management strategies.

As food demand has grown worldwide, agricultural production has intensified with a concomitant expansion in pesticide use. Concerns over pesticide-induced health and environmental problems, increased pest resistance to pesticides, and continued losses due to pests, have stimulated the search for alternative pest management solutions. As a result integrated pest management (IPM) approaches have been developed and applied that rely on genetic, cultural, biological and information-intensive pest management alternatives. This book presents and critiques the participatory approaches that can be used to globalize IPM. It describes the development, deployment, and evaluation of participatory IPM. All the chapters include perspectives from both the US and developing country scientists who are on the front lines of IPM generation and diffusion. The book is unique amongst IPM books in that it stresses policy analysis, social and economic impact assessment, multidisciplinary field research and technology transfer mechanisms.

The four-day international Conference on Pest Management in Rice, which is the subject of this volume, was the third in an ongoing series of meetings on tropical crops organised by the Pesticides Group of the Society of Chemical Industry, London. The participants came from both the public and private sectors and from many different countries. All the major groups of pests-weeds, microorganisms, arthropods and rodents-were considered, as the organisers believe that it is necessary to address the total pest management problems in each particular growing area, and the variety of the papers indicates the importance of a multi disciplinary approach to their solution. Rice is one of the most important world crops and is the major source of food for around 60% of the world's population, with a world production of 500 million tonnes from 150 million hectares of land. Since world stocks amount to only two months supply, many people are at risk from famine. Moreover, it has been esti mated that the world requirement in 2020 will be about 760 million tonnes, an increase of 50%. This pressure of population on food makes efficient pest management vital and is the reason for bringing together experts from all over the world to this major conference.

It is an edited book with chapters written by multi-disciplinary specialists in their specific subject areas. It covers development of IPM components and packaging them for individual vegetable crops specifically targeted to tropical countries. Scientific background for IPM components or tactics will be included. There will be case studies of IPM packages developed and implemented in different countries. The concept of IPM has been in existence for the past six decades; however, a practical holistic program has not been developed and implemented for vegetable crops, in the developing countries. Currently the IPM adoption rate in the tropics is minimal and there is a need for implementation of IPM technologies that are environmentally safe, economical, and socially acceptable. We believe that adoption and implementation of IPM provided in this book will lead to significant reduction in crop losses and mitigate adverse impacts of pesticide use in the tropics. This book is an outcome 20 years of research, development and implementation of the IPM CRSP, a project supported by USAID and administered by Virginia Tech in several developing countries along the tropical belt in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. ​