High temperatures and low rainfall are ideal for development of large populations of panicle rice mites in the field.

Continuous rice culture and the sharing of equipment between fields is also conducive to building damaging populations of the mites.

The mite has been extremely destructive in rice fields of tropical regions of Asia, particularly in China and Taiwan, and in and Central America.

The panicle rice mite was first introduced into the United States in 2007, and has been found in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and New York.

[4] In January 2009, officials at 11 University of California Davis greenhouses discovered panicle rice mite contamination.

The mites cause damage to plant tissue which may facilitate entry of fungal pathogens into developing grains and the leaf sheath.

Chemical controls are usually not efficacious because the mites remain present in a water-sealed area of the plant—behind the leaf sheath and near the stem.

Cultural controls include plowing stubble after harvesting crops, as well as ensuring no re-growth of plant material for winter, fallowing fields, rotation with an alternate crop, cleaning machinery before use in an un-infested field, sampling two weeks after planting to catch mite populations at low levels, and avoidance of second-cropping.

These cultural control methods as well as breeding for resistance have successfully suppressed populations in some infested countries.