Implementation of integrated ecologically based rodent management and its effectiveness to protect farmers irrigated rice crop in Karawang, West Java – Indonesia

The study was conducted in Ciptamarga Village, JayakertaSubdistrict, Karawang District, West Java - Indonesia within one cropping season in 2018. The study was started in September 2018 and terminated in December in the same year. The study site was a large irrigated rice farm belong to farmers with size around 40 hectares. The farmers plantedInpari 32 and Inpari 42 rice varieties twice a year. Rodent has been recognized as the most destructive pest in this area which accompanied by brown plant hopper, stem borer and virus as the minor pests and disease of the rice crop. The objective of this study was to control the rice field rats as the main pest contributing some losses to the local farmers. The second purpose was to determine the effectiveness of our ecologically based rat control technology which implemented by integrating several components. At the beginning of cropping season we performed sanitation, mass hunting and fumigation on the main habitats which continued by setting a TBS (Trap Barrier System) and LTBS (Linear Trap Barrier System) in different habitats. The TBS functions as a lure crop by planting those rice crop three weeks earlier than surrounding areas, as the rice field rats prefer to the generative stage. The LTBS was assembled to protect the next staggering crop by trapping rats regularly on their main habitats within a whole season. LTBS was also effective to catch the rats which move back and forthto the rice field and village after harvesting. We have set four units of TBS and four units of LTBS during the cropping season which incorporated with 48 bubu traps. We also protected seed nurseries by erected plastic fence combined with 16 bubu traps along the fence. We recorded the number of rat captured from those activities along the cropping season. These components of rat control technology were effectively catch lots of them within a cropping season accounted for 2,306 individuals. These actions provided positive impacts to the local farmers by decreasing rat population and increasing the yield. The average of yield increased from 1.9 ton/ha to 6.4 ton/ha after we performed rat control intensively. The yield data before and after implementation of rat control technology was compared and analyzed. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between those values. From this point it seems that farmer eager to adopt the technology for the next planting season.