Insecticide deposits and residues on paddy with reference to volume of spray fluid applied at different growth stages of the crop

Abstract

A set of experiments were conducted for assessing the optimum volumes of carbaryl suspension required to spray rice at different growth stages of the crop, using a pneumatic knapsack sprayer and a mist blower. The levels of pesticide deposit formed by spraying the crop at varying levels of pesticide suspension were taken as the indices of bio efficacy and these were also correlated with the leaf area indices of the crop at different growth stages . The level of contamination of the rice eco-system was assessed in terms of pesticide residue in irrigation water of the treated plots. A correlation between different levels of pesticide deposits caused by varying the volumes of the spray fluid was assessed by trials conducted against leaf roller and case worm infesting rice. In the first experiment , the crop was sprayed with 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 550 and 600 1/ha of 0.2% carbaryl suspension on using a pneumatic knapsack sprayer. Deposit on leaf and stalk of the plants, two hours after spraying , was estimated from the representative samples adopting the chemical assay method of Benson and Finocchiare (1965). The experiment was repeated at four different growth stages of the cropviz. 30, 45, 60 and 75 days after sowing. The results showed that the minimum levels of carbaryl suspension required to cause significantly higher levels of deposit on the leaves were 200, 300, 400 and 500 1/ha for the crop at 30, 45,60 and 75 days after sowing respectively.