Resistance monitoring and assessment of the control failure likelihood of insecticides in field populations of the whitebacked planthopper Sogatella furcifera (Horváth)

Abstract Sogatella furcifera (Horvath) is a major threat to rice production in China. Insecticides are a key component of typical pest management schemes, but few studies have quantitatively identified insecticide control failures due to insecticide resistance. Therefore, we measured the susceptibility of eight populations to thirteen insecticides by the rice dipping method in 2018 and further evaluated the likelihood of control failure in this study. The results showed that S. furcifera had high levels of S. furcifera resistance to buprofezin (RR = 76.42–160.14-fold), chlorpyrifos (RR = 93.50–219.90-fold), and pymetrozine (RR > 469.30-fold) and low to moderate levels of resistance to nitenpyram (RR = 1.50–10.21-fold), clothianidin (RR = 3.72–20.43-fold), thiamethoxam (RR = 2.88–19.95-fold), imidacloprid (RR = 4.05–31.81-fold), dinotefuran (RR = 4.55–25.98-fold), isoprocarb (RR = 2.55–15.71-fold), and etofenprox (RR = 5.63–17.74-fold). S. furcifera remained susceptible to cycloxaprid (resistance ratio, RR = 0.56–1.82-fold), triflumezopyrim (RR = 0.77–3.23-fold) and sulfoxaflor (RR = 2.28–4.32-fold). Pymetrozine, isoprocarb and etofenprox were determined to be at risk of control failures if the minimum recommended concentration is applied to manage this pest. Furthermore, significant correlations were found among the logarithms of the median lethal concentration (LC50) values of thirteen insecticides. Additionally, the activities of esterases in field populations of S. furcifera were significantly positively correlated with the logarithm of the LC50 values of triflumezopyrim, nitenpyram and clothianidin. The results of this survey offer an important basis for producing effective and useful strategies to manage insecticide resistance in S. furcifera.