Wilmington, Delaware-based Belchim Crop Protection USA will distribute Tenchu 20SG insecticide to control rice stink bugs.
The product — registered by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2013 — contains the active ingredient dinotefuran, a neonicotinoid.
With more emphasis on quality, many growers are paying closer attention to controlling rice stink bugs, since they can cause pecky rice. If the defect is present in high enough numbers, millers will dock the load.
In recent years, rice stink bugs have become more of a problem for Texas rice producers, says Dr. Mo Way, Texas AgriLife Research entomologist based in Beaumont.
Lone Star rice producers spray for the pest an average of three times per season but can spray up to six times.
Very high populations of RSB can develop quickly in Texas rice fields, especially in counties west of Houston.
Way blames the close proximity of rice fields to sorghum, where high populations of rice stink bugs build up before moving into rice as it begins to head.
Most of the treatments to rice involve pyrethroids, although in recent years the pest has shown a greater tolerance to that insecticide class.
Way says Texas A&M data indicate populations of Texas RSB are harder to control with a pyrethroid than populations in other southern rice-producing states.
In trials into rice stink bug control, Way evaluated Tenchu as well as other novel insecticides. He found Tenchu can provide up to 11 days of residual activity.