Rodent damage is commonly concentrated towards the center of rice fields. There are some approaches to assess the damage, two of them are the transect and the Malayan method. The transect technique is a well-known applicable practice employed among agricultural workers in Indonesia, while the Malayan method is generally performed in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to compare both methods in terms of determining the more representative technique for assessing rodent damage. The study was conducted in Karanggetas village, Bangodua subdistrict, Indramayu district, West Java (6°51’S, 108°29’E) in 2018. Two plots (0.35 ha and 0.56 ha) were selected as the study site which was planted with Inpari 32. Since the generative stage of the rice crop is the most preferable phase for rodents, therefore we solely observed the damage within this period. We recorded the damage intensity four times with weekly intervals by both methods in each plot. To confirm the rodent population and reproduction status, we installed a linear trap barrier system and dug some active burrows along the irrigation channel bank as their main habitat. The result showed that the damage intensity was significantly different between both methods. The damage intensity was higher when it was assessed by the transect method compared to the Malayan one. The result indicated that the transect method is a better technique representing the damage than the Malayan method. This due to the first method covered almost entirely the damaged spot. This finding suggested that the transect method is the representative technique for assessing rodent damage intensity.

In Asia, rodents are known to be one of the main constraints to agricultural production where losses of just 6% of the rice crop (35 million tons) are enough to feed 230 million people for one year. Rodent cycles and outbreaks in Asia can lead to severe crop losses and result in major food shortages. Multi-annual patterns in rodent populations (rodent cycles) have been recorded in Asia and have been shown to be linked to masting events of bamboo. One example of population cycles are those associated with the flowering of the bamboo Melocanna baccifera in Mizoram, India, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, and Chin State, Myanmar. Rodent outbreaks (non-cyclic) are common in Southeast Asia. These events are driven by availability of food and recently have been linked to extreme weather events that cause asynchrony of cropping. Rodents must be managed at a landscape level to help alleviate losses for the 4.1 billion people that rely on rice as their food staple. Proc. 26 th Vertebr. Pest Conf. (R. M. Timm and J. M. O'Brien, Eds.)Published at Univ. of Calif., Davis. 2014.