Rice Sheath Mite: An Emerging Pest of Global Importance

This book provides a state of Art review on rice sheath mite, Steneotarsonemus spinki Smiley (Acari:Tarsonemidae), which is emerging as a notorious pest in the entire rice growing areas of the world. Since rice is the staple food of over 3 billion people of the world and 60% more rice is needed to be produced by 2025 to meet the demand of ever increasing world population, a rice pest of the stature of S.spinki causing havoc economic loss becomes a matter of great concern. Apart from general morphology, its life cycle, geographical distribution, seasonal occurrence, extent of damage, varietal preference, off-season survival, alternate hosts, management, adopting cultural, chemical and biological methods, other associated mites, dispersal, mite-fungus association etc. have been dealt with. A discussion has also been made regarding future strategy to be adopted. All the cited references have been listed at the end, photographs of mites and damages are also given in the book. This exhaustive review book will be highly useful to all the rice-entomologists and acarologists, to have up-dated information as well as will help the planners and policy makers to develop the future strategy.