What the RSSI Protocol Actually Tells Farmers to Do

By late July 2026, RSSI had moved from Negros into Mindanao. The outbreak I wrote about in the July pest crisis article had reached provinces that hadn't seen it before. Then on August 8, Roberto A. Alaban Jr. published version 1.0 of a complete integrated pest management protocol written specifically for RSSI in Philippine conditions.

Alaban is not someone who learned this from extension literature. He spent years as an agronomist at Agricane Consulting in South Africa and as Crop Protection Coordinator at Addax BioEnergy in Sierra Leone. Both roles involved large-scale cane pest management in environments where scale forces you to systematize. The protocol reflects that. It is detailed, phase-specific, and built around scouting numbers rather than calendar dates.

What follows is my translation of that protocol for Negros smallholders. The protocol document itself names varieties, chemicals by IRAC group, and specific water volumes. I've kept those specifics in because they are the parts that matter most. If your current practice is "spray at Month 3," this will change how you think about that.

Scout First. Spray Second.

The protocol does not begin with a chemical. It begins with a threshold.

Walk your field in a W or Z pattern. Inspect at least 20 stools per hectare. Count the affected ones. If fewer than 20% show RSSI infestation, the protocol says monitor only. No spray. If 20 to 40% are affected, you move to Phase 2 treatment. If more than 40% are affected, or if you see sooty mold on the yield-forming tissue of the stalk, you trigger Phase 2 immediately and schedule Phase 4 earlier than the standard calendar.

Most Philippine pest management runs on a calendar. You spray at Month 3 because the schedule says Month 3. Alaban's protocol rejects that entirely. Every chemical application is triggered by a scouting number. That shift matters for two reasons: it prevents unnecessary applications on fields that don't need them, and it slows resistance development by reducing total chemical exposure across the rotation.

Phase 0: Before You Plant

Source clean seed cane from fields with no RSSI history. Before you cut the setts, inspect visually for scale colonies, honeydew residue, or sooty mold. Discard affected material.

The step most farmers skip: strip the leaf sheaths, pag-panit, before dipping setts in any treatment solution. RSSI crawlers hide under tight sheaths. A sett submerged in treatment without sheath removal will carry protected crawlers through the treatment and into your field. Strip first, then dip.

If you're sourcing from a field with known RSSI, submerge stripped setts for 1 to 2 minutes in horticultural mineral oil at 100 to 200 mL per 20 L of water, or neem oil emulsion with an organosilicone surfactant added for cuticle penetration. Drain immediately after dipping. Do not soak longer than 2 minutes. Bud suffocation is a real risk past that point.

Phase 1: Day of Planting

A systemic insecticide goes into the root zone at planting. For ratoons, it goes in at stubble shaving. The minimum water volume is 400 L per hectare. This establishes a chemical barrier in the rhizosphere before the plant is at any risk from crawlers moving through the field.

For plant crops: drench the furrow directly over the laid sett pieces before soil coverage. For ratoons: narrow-band spray over cut stubble after off-barring and stubble shaving.

The chemical rotation across years is the part that requires planning. Year 1 and Year 3: Imidacloprid or Thiamethoxam (IRAC Group 4A), or Thiamethoxam combined with Chlorantraniliprole, sold as Virtako (Groups 4A and 28). Year 2 is a Group 4A break year: use Flupyradifurone or Sulfoxaflor combined with Chlorantraniliprole. If Virtako was used in Year 1, do not use another Group 28 product in Year 2.

The rotation exists because insects develop resistance to a chemical class when exposed to it repeatedly. Breaking Group 4A every second year slows that process across the farm system.

Phase 2: Months 3 to 4, Closed Canopy

Phase 2 is applied only when scouting shows more than 20% infestation. If the field stays below threshold, you do not spray. Full stop.

When you do spray, the protocol specifies a minimum of 400 L/ha water volume. Standard Philippine recommendations call for 200 L/ha. Alaban's protocol doubles it. RSSI colonies form inside leaf sheaths and on lower stalk nodes, not on the surface of leaves. At 200 L/ha, the spray treats the canopy top. The infestation is below it.

Year 1 and Year 3: Spirotetramat, sold as Movento 240 SC, IRAC Group 23. Spirotetramat is ambimobile, meaning it moves both upward and downward in the plant after absorption. Colonies that are never touched by spray can still be reached by the compound moving through plant tissue. Year 2: Flonicamid (Mainman 50 WG) or Afidopyropen (Sefina 50 DC). These compounds move mainly upward in the plant, so the nozzle must be directed toward the lower canopy rather than over the top of the rows.

Phase 3: Month 5, Detrashing

Strip aging yellow and brown leaf sheaths from each stalk. This removes the harborage where RSSI egg masses form and exposes lower nodes to air movement, natural predators, and future applications.

The two-worker method in the protocol is specific about roles. Worker 1, the lead, scans for white cottony ovisacs, the egg structures that look like small balls of cotton at the stalk base. Leaves with visible egg masses go into a carry pouch and off the field for destruction. Not dropped on the ground. Off the field. Worker 2 trails 6 meters behind, strips the remaining yellow and dry brown leaves, and drops them in the interrow as mulch.

The hard limit on detrashing: never strip the plant below 8 to 10 active green leaves. A plant stripped below that threshold loses too much photosynthetic capacity during grand growth.

Infestation tier determines what happens to the stripped leaves. Light, meaning scattered and less than 10%: strip and drop in the interrow. Moderate without eggs, meaning 10 to 30%: strip and drop. Moderate with eggs or heavy, meaning white ovisacs visible or dense crust over 30%: bag and remove off-field. The logic is that dropping leaves carrying egg masses back into the interrow only reinfests the field.

Phase 4: Biological Agents After Detrashing

Ground applications start within 48 to 72 hours after detrashing is finished. That window intercepts mobile crawlers before they re-establish on the cleared stalks. If you wait longer than 72 hours, the crawlers have already found new harborage.

Apply after 4:00 PM. This is not a casual suggestion. Biological agents, specifically Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana, require overnight humidity above 85% to germinate and infect their target insects. Daytime application exposes the agents to UV radiation and drying before germination occurs. Evening application lets the overnight humidity do the work.

Spray technique: a 1.0 to 1.2 meter lance with a 45-degree angled tip, hollow-cone or off-center flat fan nozzle, at 1.5 to 2.0 bar pressure. Walking speed 1.0 to 1.2 meters per second. Walk forward spraying the right face of each row, return along the next interrow spraying the opposite face. This pattern ensures both sides of the stalk base receive coverage.

Before mixing biological agents, run the float test. Add a small amount of the agent to water in a clear container. Live, viable spores float as a dry powdery film on the surface. Dead spores sink or make the water murky. Discard any batch that fails the float test. Biological agents are temperature-sensitive and frequently arrive at farms in damaged condition from poor storage in transit.

Year 1 and Year 3: Metarhizium anisopliae or Beauveria bassiana, 1.0 to 2.0 kg/ha. No synthetic fungicides within 14 days before or after, because fungicides kill the biological agents. Year 2 Option A (ground application): Buprofezin, sold as Applaud 25 WP. Year 2 Option B (if drone access is available): Spirotetramat, Flonicamid, Afidopyropen, or Sulfoxaflor.

Why the Protocol Excludes Carbofuran

Carbofuran, sold as Furadan, is excluded from the protocol entirely. The reasons are listed explicitly and they are not about regulation alone.

Philippine sugarcane planting is manual. Workers handle setts by hand. Carbofuran is WHO Class Ib, which means it has extreme acute toxicity by skin contact and inhalation. That risk alone disqualifies it for use in a system where human hands are in contact with treated material.

Beyond that: Carbofuran kills the soil microflora and entomopathogenic fungi that make Phase 4 biological applications effective. It kills Anagyrus parasitoids and ladybird beetles, the natural predators that suppress RSSI populations between intervention windows. And it does not penetrate RSSI's waxy ovisac layer, so it fails at its specific target while destroying the biological system around it. The protocol notes that Carbofuran use has been linked to mill audit failures due to residue stability in processed cane. It has no place in this system.

The Mindanao spread article covers where the outbreak is moving and what that means for farms beyond Negros. This protocol is the practical response for farms that already have RSSI present or are in its path.