Raising Ducks in Rice Paddies Significantly Controls Golden Apple Snails

Golden apple snails are not only highly damaging to rice, but their hard shells easily cut people, and on top of that, their bodies harbor a parasite called Angiostrongylus cantonensis, making them especially harmful to human health. Since the beginning of this year, Pengshan County has stepped up publicity on control techniques and specially produced a feature program on golden apple snail control. "This year we took preventive measures relatively early, and the situation is much better now." On July 27, when talking about the golden apple snail situation in the rice paddies this year, Gan Qidong, a villager from Kaixuan Village, Jiangkou Town, Pengshan County, was very happy.

In 2010, Gan Qidong's rice paddies suffered a "severe" infestation of golden apple snails. At the peak, there were as many as 20 golden apple snails per square meter of paddy field. "This year, after we transplanted the seedlings, under the guidance of the relevant departments, we took preventive measures in advance." Gan Qidong said.

Manual capture and killing

According to the person in charge of the snail eradication campaign, Pengshan County is currently mainly adopting the method of "three prevention measures and one remediation" in an effort to completely eradicate the snails: chemical control using 25% niclosamide ethanolamine salt wettable powder; manual control by picking egg masses and collecting snails during the two peak egg-laying periods of golden apple snails in spring and autumn; and concentrated remediation of overwintering breeding sites of golden apple snails to cut off the source.

At the same time, relevant departments also mobilized the public to carry out manual capture and killing. In townships with relatively severe golden apple snail outbreaks, such as Xieja, Pengxi and Jiangkou in the county, farmers were organized to go deep into the fields to manually pick and collect egg masses, young snails and adult snails, and carry them out of the fields for crushing, burning, or treatment with lime followed by deep burial.

Biological control

"We also raised ducks in the rice paddies to kill the snails." Gan Qidong told reporters that under the guidance of the county agriculture bureau, they also adopted rice-duck integrated farming technology. Judging from the current results, biological control has achieved remarkable success.

Technicians from the county agriculture bureau guided farmers to set up enclosing nets after the rice was transplanted and turned green, at a rate of one enclosure for every 3-5 mu of rice paddy, and to release 15-20 ducks per mu, until the ducks were collected after the rice grains had set. Through the ducks' movement and foraging in the fields, effective prevention and control of golden apple snails was achieved.

"Raising paddy ducks not only eliminates golden apple snails, but also increases income, and it is green and environmentally friendly. This is a good thing that achieves multiple benefits at once." said Elder Zhang from the village.

At present, the number and harm of golden apple snails in rice paddies across the county have both noticeably decreased, playing a positive role in achieving a bumper rice harvest and promoting farmers' income growth. It is understood that in Pengshan County, about 1,500 mu of rice paddies had golden apple snail damage reaching the control threshold, and the county controlled golden apple snails on a total of 5,000 mu, with a control efficacy of over 80%. After control, the number of snails per square meter of rice paddy did not exceed 2, and the number of egg masses did not exceed 1.