Research Article Application of Vermicompost with Different Feeding Material for Inducing Rice Plant Resistance against Brown Planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens Stål.) Attack Dewi Hastuti 1) , Eltis Panca Ningsih 1) *, Sri Ritawati 1) , & Rida Oktorida Khastini 2) 1) Department of Agroecotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa 2) Department of Biology Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa Jln. Raya Jakarta Km 4, Pakupatan, Serang City, Banten 42124 Indonesia *Corresponding author. E-mail: eltispn14@untirta.ac.id ABSTRACT Brown planthopper (BPH) is a major pest in rice plants and has become a global pest. This pest causes hopperburn in rice plants. This research aimed to know the effect of vermicompost from different feeding materials on rice plant damage by brown planthopper attack. This research was carried out between November 2019–March 2020 at the Sistandu integrated farming system, Serang City, Banten. The experiment method used in this research was a factorial Randomized Block Design (RBD) and consisted of two factors with three replications. The first factor was vermicompost (P) with 5 levels, while the second factor was rice varieties (V) with two groups resulting in ten treatments. Data were analyzed with ANOVA, then followed by a 5% DMRT. The results showed that the application of vermicompost with different feeding materials had non-significant effects on growth of rice plants in the vegetative phase and fecundity of the BPH. However, it significantly affected the intensity of rice plant damage in the generative phase, the offspring population of BPH, and the BPH feeding rate. While the use of two varieties of rice did not have distinct effects on all parameters. There was no interaction effect between the two factors tested, both vermicompost feeding material treatment and rice plant variety, to all the parameters that have been studied. Keywords: brown planthopper; rice plant variety; vermicompost INTRODUCTION Brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens Stål.) has been known to attack rice plants since 1931 on rice fields in the Dramaga Bogor area (Baehaki & Mejaya, 2014). Brown planthopper is widely distributed in the Palaearctic region (China, Japan, and Korea), Southeast Asia, and Australia (Fiji, Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and New Guinea). Data shows that BPH has now become a global pest that is difficult to control (Catindig et al., 2009). One of the reasons for BPH population explosion was due to the development of insecticide resistance. Resistance can be defined as a change in inherited sensitivity of a pest population, which is reflected in the repeated failure of insecticides applications to control pests at recommended dosages (Müller, 2000). In Indonesia, BPH attack outbreak had occurred in 1977–1976. It reached 242,427 ha damage (Dyck & Thomas, 1979). In 2010 and 2011 there were also quite high attacks that reached 223,656 ha (Thorburn, 2015), whereas in 2018, there was 95,431 ha rice infested by BPH (Direktorat Perlindungan Tanaman Pangan, 2018). BPH attacks always occur each year with fluctuating area of damage. Therefore, to maintain rice production in Indonesia, it is necessary to control BPH. Rice plant resistance to BPH can be stimulated by applying vermicompost, that are rich of nutrient (Adhikary, 2012) and bioactive compound such as humic acid (Martinez-Balmori et al., 2014). Jurnal Perlindungan Tanaman Indonesia, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2021: 160–172 DOI: 10.22146/jpti.60824 Available online at http://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jpti ISSN 1410-1637 (print), ISSN 2548-4788 (online) Received November 5, 2020; revised November 25, 2020; accepted December 30, 2021 Copyright ©2021, Jurnal Perlindungan Tanaman Indonesia (CC BY-SA 4.0)