Amidst the time when India is dealing with its worst crisis hit in years in the form of COVID-19, there is another threat that has surrounded few states of India. Currently, we are witnessing the worst locusts attack in India in the past 28 years or so. We have heard numerous things about the locusts and how is it affecting our agriculture and ultimately our environment. In this article, we will give you a clear picture as to how these locusts have invaded and what are the measures taken by the government to counter it.
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Let’s start the article with a few basic information
1. Locust Attacks in India – Complete Highlight
1.1 What is a Desert Locust?
Locusts are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually alone existing, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behavior and habits, becoming perilous.
No visible distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under suitable conditions.
These grasshoppers are normally harmless, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture in any way. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers a dramatic set of changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough.
Both the bands and the swarms move around and rapidly strip fields and cause damage to crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles.
The desert locust is potentially the most dangerous of the locust pests because of the ability of swarms to fly rapidly across great distances. It has two to five generations per year.
1.2 Life Cycle of A Deserted Locust
The life cycle of a deserted locust is distributed into 3 steps, the egg, then the nymph known as hopper, and then winged locust.
The female seeks suitable soft soil in which she lay her eggs. It needs to be at the right temperature and degree of dampness and be in close proximity to other egg-laying females.
The egg pod is 3 to 4 cm (1.2 to 1.6 in) long and the lower end is about 10 cm (4 in) below the surface of the ground.
The incubation period before the eggs hatch maybe two weeks or much longer, depending on the temperature.
They live up to a period of 3-5 months.
2. 7 Interesting Facts About Desert Locusts
Desert Locusts fly with an average airspeed of 15-19 km/hr which also depends upon the wind. These species can travel upto a distance fo 20-130 km in a single day. They can stay in the air for a longer period than any other aerial species.
A young locust flies at night mostly while the adults mostly fly during the day time and in the swarms.
A desert locust can consume the same amount of food that is equal to its body weight. That is 2 gm per day. Their swarms can be ranging from 20 million to 40 million at a time.
Locusts never attack humans or any animals. No such case has ever been reported in any part of the world.
Over the years of study, it has been proved that locusts do not carry any harmful disease that harms the human race.
Locusts are usually caught using the nets and ferns. These are to be caught manually, although their huge swarm size make it difficult.
The primary method of controlling desert locust infestations is with insecticides applied in small concentrated doses by vehicle-mounted and aerial sprayers at ultra-low volume (ULV) rates of application.
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3. State Measures To Curb Locust Attacks
The spread of locust threat began from the state of Rajasthan and has now gradually spread to states like Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh.
States have sought various measures to control the locust spread and stop them to eat the green vegetation.
The Delhi Government has asked the officials to spray insecticides, pesticides on the green vegetation, and the crops standing the fields.
Chlorpyrifos and Malathion are the pesticides that are instructed to be sprayed on the crops.
Maharashtra prepared themselves for the attack of locusts by shaking hands with the local farmers and spraying the insecticides and pesticides with their help,
Palghar & Gondia districts are more probe into the attack and hence are advised to finish the spraying at the earliest and since there is an activity between the night and morning time, it has to be active during that time also.
So far more than 85,000 hectares of land have been impacted by the locusts in Rajasthan.
The commissioner of the agriculture department of Rajasthan, Sri Om Prakash said that they have sprayed on to a total of 67000 hectares of land in the last 2 days.
Haryana has issued a high alert in 7 of its districts.
Tractors with chemical spray have been deployed in the districts of Haryana.
India has also placed an order of buying 60 spraying machines from UK based company Micron.
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