Mole cricket (Gryllotalpa orientalis, Orthoptera )

Polyphagus insect

Damaging stage: adult and nymph

Damaging symptoms :

• loss of plant stand
• cut seedlings at base
• poor growth of seedlings
• dead seedlings
• missing plants
• damaged roots

Mole crickets are polyphagous. They feed on the underground parts of almost all-upland crops. They occasionally become sufficiently abundant to cause heavy damage to roots and basal parts of rice plants growing in raised nursery beds or upland conditions. In wetland rice, infestation occurs when there is no standing water.

Management

• Maintain standing
• Encourage biological control agents: sphecid wasp, carabid beetle, nematodes, and fungus; mole crickets eat each other when they are together because of their cannibalistic
• Poison insects by baits made by mixing moistened rice bran and insecticide and placing it along rice bunds or drier areas of the field.