During the past several years malathion has been applied in controlling the small brown planthopper,
Laodelphax striatellus FALLÉN, in Hiroshima Prefecture. In early summer of 1964 a number of rice growers experienced difficulty in the control of small brown planthopper by helicopter application of malathion in some parts of the middle and northern areas in Hiroshima Prefecture, while excellent controls were given in another areas.
Because of failures of control in malathion applications in 1964, this study was undertaken to determine if malathion resistance in this planthopper had developed. The test insects were collected from 21 localities of Hiroshima Prefecture and in 6 localities of other prefectures, and they were treated by root treatment with malathion.
The results obtained in this study are summarized as follows.
1) The planthoppers from many areas varied markedly in their responses to malathion with different localities of insects. For instance, in Nagano colony (Osaka Prefecture) which showed the highest susceptibility to malathion of all colonies, the LD-50 values (μg/tube) of adult female and male were 53.4 and 33.0 respectively. That of adult male of Chiyoda colony (Hiroshima Prefecture) which were lowest of all were 343.1 and 315.7 respectively. In adult of Chiyoda colony, the level of malathion resistance was 6.4- to 9.6- fold to Nagano colony at the LD-50. All colonies from 27 localities were grouped into three orders according to the degree of malathion resistance. Resistance was shown by colonies from Chiyoda, Toyohira and Saijo. Some susceptibility was indicated in 6 colonies from Hiroshima Prefecture, (2 colonies), Yamaguchi (2), Osaka (1), and Hokkaido (1).
2) In Hiroshima Prefecture, malathion resistant planthoppers were found throughout the whole region and the degree of malathion resistance varied markedly in each area. It seemed that there were no relations between the variations in the resistance to malathion and the distance of the locations of collection, and that resistance to malathion developed at each locality itself, even in the case of the small brown planthopper which goes through extensive migration or flight.
3) The standard deviation of susceptibility to malathion in each colony was correlated with the LD-84 value. Therefore, the increase of resistance in the small brown planthopper induced non-uniformity in its reaction to malathion.
4) Considerably the high correlation was recognized (
r=0.693) between the LD-50 value and the amount of malathion used in the past nine years at the areas where the test insects were collected.
It is now evident that the repeated application of malathion was one of the contributing factors to the development of malathion resistance.
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