IRRI DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES NO. 18 A Survey Portfolio for the Characterization of Rice Pest Constraints Serge Savary, Francisco A. Elazegui, and Paul S. Teng INTERNATIONAL RICE RESEARCH INSTITUTEThe International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was established in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations with te belp and approval ofthe Government of the Philippines. Today IRRI is one ofthe 16 nonprofit in- ternational research centers supported by the Consultative Group on Inter ‘ational Agricultural Research (CGIAR), The CGIAR is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations, te International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the United [Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Its membership is comprised ‘of donor countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations ‘A listed in its most recent Corporate Report, IRRI receives support, ‘through the CGIAR, from a number of donors including UNDP, World ‘Bank, European Union, Asian Development Bank, Rockefeller Founds tion, and Ford Foundation, and the intemational aid agencies ofthe fol- lowing governments: Australi, Belgium, Canada, People's Republic of China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan, Republic of ‘Korea, The Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States ‘The responsibility for this publication rest with the International Rice Research Institue © International Rice Research Institute 1996 IRRI Discussion Paper Series ‘The IRRI Discussion Paper Series was created a a flexible means for IRRI Scientists to share information with specialized institations and individu- als. Each paper is produced from camera ready copy supplied by the as- thor and is processed through IRRI's Communication and Publications Services. The papers are read for typographical accuracy only and ae not Subjected to the normal IRRI editing or peer review processes The series is intended to be a fast means of presenting preliminary results of research stl in progress, but which could be of immediate use t0 ‘others. The series also contains special project reports, consortia and net- work reports, short proceedings or reports of meetings and workshops, recommendations from a particular workshop, and similar materials IRI invites feedback from readers, which willbe useful tothe au- ‘hors when they are refining their materials fr formal publiation i jour. nals or as monographs. International Rice Research Insitute PO. Box 933, Manila 1099, Philippines Fax: (63:2) 891-1292 Electronic mail: Postmaster @IRRICGNET.COM Home page: hup:/vww.cgia orgferi Telex: (TTT) 40890 RICE PM (CW) 14519 IRILB (RCA) 22856 1RI PH (CW 14861 IRI PS Suggested Citation: Savary S, Elazegui FA, Teng PS. 1996. A survey portfolio forthe characterization of rie pest consraints. IRRI Discussion Paper Series No. 18. International Rice Resarch Institue, PO. Box 933, Manila, Philippines, ISBN 971-22-0090-6 ISSN 0117-8180A Survey Portfolio for the Charaterization of Rice Pest Constraints Serge Savary ORSTOMARR! Project on Characterization of Rice Pests, Entomology ‘and Plant Pathology Division, IRRI Francisco A. Elazegui Entomology and Plant Pathology Division, IRRI Poul S. Teng Entomology and Piant Pathology Division, IRR 1996 INTERNATIONAL RICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE P.O. Box 933, Manila 1099, Philippines.CONTENTS, Concepts A few useful concepts Development of a survey protocol A protocol to assess pest constraints to rice production: survey procedure and information tor assessing injuries in farmers’ fields Principles Developing a sampling strategy and a feasible survey plan General information (Form 1) Crop and pest status (Form 2) List of variables A working example Nature of the variables Compaction over time: injury variables A hypothetical survey data set Categorization: compaction over range Contingency tables and chi-square tests Correspondence analysis Cluster analysis and other analytical approaches Illustrating the concept of recommendation domain in IPM: a case study in eastern Uttar Pradesh References RPeeara 17 17 18 18 19 20 23 27 31CONCEPTS Within any geographic area where pest management is to be improved or adapted to agricultural changes, there is a need for characterization to define domains for research and technology development and subsequent technology extrapolation (Teng and Savary 1992, Savary et al 1994). Characterization requires that reliable, representative field data be available. A common approach is to collect such data using sample surveys. Surveys are a means to characterize constraints to crop production and represent an essential component of systems research in plant protection. The general methodology was recently reviewed in Teng (1987), Campbell and Madden (1990), and Savary et al (1995). The rice crop system is so complex (Savary et al 1994, Savary et al 1996) that a large number of descriptors is, on principle, required for its characterization. Each ricefield can be seen as a unique realization of one combination of many attributes. These attributes encompass a growing crop, its physical environment, its pests, and a farmer, whose management affects the whole system. The number of rice pests (diseases, insects, and weeds) to be considered and the levels at which they vary from field to field reflect this diversity (Teng 1990, Litsinger 1992). The prime objective of a survey is to provide an adequate account of this diversity; the prime objective of survey data analysis, however, is to resolve this diversity to a degree that allows interpretations. This document offers a set of field techniques to address this diversity and presents statistical methods to exploit information that is diverse in nature, precision, and accuracy. A few useful concepts Production situation. The concept of production situation was introduced by De Wit and Penning de Vries (1982) to describe the set of factors--physical, biological, and socioeconomic--that determine agricultural production. We shall make use of this concept, within the restricted scope of an individual ricefield and from the restricted view point of plant protection. A quick overview of the variables listed in the following survey procedure allows one to understand how this concept is operationalized here: this list includes a few key components of rice crop management (which reflect, to some degree, the physical and socioeconomic environments and their interactions) and a series of rice pests (insects, pathogens, and weeds)Injury, damage, and loss. An injury is the visible, measurable result of the biological activity of a pest. An injury may, or may not, translate into a damage ie., a yield reduction; this yield reduction may, in tum, translate into a loss, often measured in economic terms (Zadoks and Schein 1979, Zadoks 1985). Our prime focus here is represented by the injuries caused by a series of pests. The difficult issue of estimating damage from survey data alone is addressed in the last section of this document Potential, attainable, and actual yields. We use here definitions developed by FAO (Chiarappa 1971). The potential yield that a given genotype of a crop under optimal environmental conditions is in practice limited by a number of factors in a farmer's field: the supply of water or nutrient may not coincide with the needs of the plants at a particular development stage; light or temperature may temporarily be suboptimal for some physiological processes. This attainable yield may further be reduced by environmental factors such as storms or pests. The result is the actual yield that can be measured in a farmer's field. Precision vs. accuracy. \deally, measurements should be both precise (as consistent as possible over successive samples) and accurate (as close as possible to the "true" value [Forbes and Jeger, 1987}). In the context of a survey, the accumulation of observations often is counterproductive: as in any tedious field work, accuracy has been shown to sharply decline with the number of successive observations (S. Savary, unpublished). One should also consider the cost of characterization research-it is probably among the most expensive activities in plant protection. Accuracy should ‘come first, and is best achieved with comparatively few observations, which in turn can be distributed over a large number of fields so as to increase representativeness of the survey. One must also realize that true limits exist to the precision of some measurements: for instance, standard deviations of approximately 20% are the norm in surveys on cereals (Church and Austin 1983) Development of a survey protocol The development of a survey protocol needs to take into account these concepts, and operationalize them. Operational definitions (Zadoks and Schein 1979)--the translation of concepts into a series of specific steps leading to measurements--are sometimes difficult to establish (Butt and Royle 1978, Savary 1991). A clear definition of objectives can partly alleviate such difficulties. In the particular case of the development of a survey portfolio aiming at characterizing rice cropping practices, quantifying injuries, and measuring links between actual rice yields, cropping practices, and pest injuries, our task was considerably simplified by the pioneering work done by Elazegui et al (1990) in the Central Plain of Luzon, Philippines. The development of a survey portfolio may follow a path similar to the one used to develop the present portfolio on characterization of rice pest constraints: