2.1 Plant growth and insect rearing
Oryza sativa L. japonica. cv. Nipponbare rice was used in this study. The rice seeds were planted into a 600 mL plastic pot filled with sterile soil under controlled conditions, with a temperature maintained at 28 ± 2°C and a 16 hours (h)/8 h light-dark cycle (Hasan et al., 2022). After 40 days, these rice plants were subjected to infestation by gravid BPH female adults. The colonies of BPH were collected from rice fields in Nanjing, China, and were reared on rice seedlings in a climate chamber under a constant temperature of 28 ± 1℃ and a 16 h/8 h light/dark cycle.