Rodent management modules against Bandicota bengalensis Gray & Hardwicke in Rice

Treatments efficacy assessed for rodent incidence and tiller damage revealed that all the treatments caused significant reduction of rat live burrows and rat tiller damage over control. Integration of rodent management techniques in Module-1 (trapping- bromadiolone poison baiting - burrow smoking) and Module-2 (Zinc Phosphide poison baiting-bromadiolone poison baiting-Aluminium Phosphide burrow application) found promising with significantly lowered rodent incidence and crop damage. % reduction in live burrows was 68.6 and 71.1 during 2017–18 and 61.8 and 65.8 during 2018–19 in Module-1 and 2, respectively. Tiller damage protection % was 65.9 and 68.9 in 2017–18 and 67.2 and 69.9 during 2018–19 for these treatments. Continuous application of rodenticides solo in M-5 (ALP) and M-4 (bromadiolone) also showed superior performance in containing the rodent damage and they are at par with the integrated treatments at certain crop stages. All the treatments recorded significant yield advantage over the control, but the benefit cost ratio were found relatively higher in the rodenticide treatments, highest (8:1) in the Module-2.