Nonglandular silicified trichomes are essential for rice defense against chewing herbivores.

Interspecific New Rice for Africa (NERICA) varieties have been recently developed and used in Sub-Saharan Africa but herbivore resistance properties of these plants remain poorly understood. Here we report that, compared to a local Japanese cultivar Nipponbare, NERICA 1, 4 and 10 are significantly more damaged by insect herbivores in the paddy fields. In contrast to high levels of leaf damage from rice skippers and grasshoppers, constitutive and induced volatile organic compounds for indirect plant defense were higher or similar in NERICAs and Nipponbare.