Mexican Rice Borer Research in Texas, Spring 2009

The Mexican rice borer is a devastating pest of sugarcane and a serious pest of rice. Mexican rice borer moths are light tan with delta-shaped wings. Adult moths lay spherical, cream-colored eggs in groups of five to 100. Young larvae feed on the tissue inside the leaf sheath and bore into the rice stem after about one week of feeding. Larvae are whitish in color with a light-colored head capsule and two pair of dark purple stripes running the length of the body. Pupation takes place inside the rice stem after mature larvae have constructed an emergence window covered by one or two layers of plant tissue. Emergence holes are smaller than those made by the sugarcane borer.