Oryzophagus oryzae (Costa Lima, 1936) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is the most damaging insect in flooded rice in the South Region of Brazil. Its damage to rice plants is caused primarily by larval pruning of the root system. Two field experiments were conducted to simulate the larval damage, testing an equipment whose main part is a U form metal blade, with 6cm of width and 8cm of length, to cut the roots. The roots of cultivars, with biological early cycle and susceptibles to O. oryzae (BR-Irga 414 and Bluebelle) and with medium cycle and resistants (BR-Irga 410 and Dawn), were submitted to (1) artificial cutting by the simulator equipment, (2) natural cutting by larvae and (3) without artificial or natural cutting, protected by insecticide. The simulation was done during the rice plants vegetative phase at 31 days after permanent flood, when the larval population peak occurs. For evaluation were determined data related to weight, volume and length of roots (soon after simulation and plants booting phase), larval population on natural damaged plants and grain yield. It was observed that soon after simulation, in all cultivars, the root damage rates induced by the simulator equipment were similar to those caused by natural larval cutting. At the booting phase, also the root system recovery rates of the plants submitted to natural or artificial damage were similar. The medium cycle cultivars showed significantly higher root recovery and lower yield reduction, after both root damage types, corroborating with their higher resistance degree to O. oryzae. It was concluded that the methodology used to simulate O. oryzae larval root damage is applicable for researching genetic resistance to the insect, mainly to identify irrigated rice genotypes.
Oryza sativa; rice water weevil; host plant resistance; evaluation; methodology
