The terror that was DESERT LOCUST

The terror that was DESERT LOCUSTS

• Desert locusts(Schistocera gregaria) belong to the family of grasshoppers, normally live and breed in semi-arid or desert regions.
• For laying eggs, they require bare ground which is not found in areas with dense vegetation. Therefore they need areas like Rajasthan to breed.
• But green vegetation is required for hopper development,which is a stage between the nymph and the winged adult mouth. So such cover can’t be found in arid regions.
• Locusts are not very dangerous as  individuals or when they are found in small groups. But when their population grows to a very large extent ,they undergo behavioural changes transform from solitary face into gregarious face and start forming swarms.
• A single swarm can contain 40,000 to 80,000,000 adults in 1 km². They can travel up to 150 km a day.
• Large-scale breeding happens only under favourable conditions.
• Sometimes good rains can generate enough green vegetation which is required for egg laying  as well as hopper development.
• These Locust usually breed in dry areas around it to Ethopia, Somalia, Eritrea along the eastern coast of Africa. Other breeding grounds are Asian countries of Yemen, Oman, Iran and western Pakistan.
• Many of these areas receives heavy rainfall in March and April this year which resulted in large-scale breeding and hopper development and so this started arriving in large numbers in Rajasthan in April this year.Normally they would arrive here here from July to October.
• We have a Locust warning organisation which is a unit under agriculture ministry.
• There was an usual cyclonic storms in 2018 in Arabian Sea. Cyclonic storms Mekunu and Luban had struck Oman and Aman respectively that year. So due to the heavy rains ,the desert tracks convert into large lake. A single gregarious female locust can lay 60 - 80 eggs three times during its average life cycle of 90 days. If their breeding time is same as that of kharif crop, then that would be a dangerous thing for the farmers.

• Locusts control has involved spraying of Organo-phosphate pesticides on the night resting places of the locusts.Recently,Indian Council Of Sugarcane Research(Lucknow) advised farmers to spray chemicals like lamdacyhalothirn,deltamethrin,fipronil,chlorpyriphos,or malathion to control the swarms.