Nichino India, an arm of the Japanese agrochemical company Nihon Nohyaku Co, has launched Orchestra to control rice Brown Plant Hopper, a pest that causes enormous loss to farmers in the country.

“The majority of the products in the market now have resistance issues and farmers tend go for more number of sprays for BPH control,” a Nichino India executive said.

“Due to this incessantly high usage of BPH control products, the agro eco system gets severely damaged impacting the population of beneficial insects like spiders, lady bird beetles and mirid bugs,” he said.

He said that the new active Benzpyrimoxan (BPX) developed by the company worked effectively against the pest. “BPX works through a novel mode of action called Ecdysone Titer Disruptor.

This product, named Orchestra, controls the BPH effectively and selectively without hurting the beneficial insects, Tomooka Naohiro, Managing Director of Nichino India, said in a statement on Thursday.

M Bhale Rao, Director and Chief Technology Officer of Nichino India, said that Orchestra was test marketed in the just-concluded rabi season.