What Are Locusts? | 2020 | Agroblogs

Locusts are a collection of species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase that spread across regions, voracious crop eater & leaving serious agricultural damage in their wake.

Common name: Desert Locusts

Scientific name: Schistocerca gregaria

Type: Invertebrates

Diet: Herbivore

Group name: Swarm (dimension: 40km * 60km in Kenya in 2020)

Average Life Span: Several months

Size: 0.5 to 3 inches

Weight: 0.07 ounces

 

Life of a Locust

Egg

(10-65 days)

 ↓

Non flying adult (hopper)

(25-95 days)

↓ 

Flying adult

(2.5 -5 months)

(On hatching, a locust emerges wingless as a non-flying nymph, which can be either solitary or gregarious. A nymph can also change behaviour in between the phase before becoming a flying adult after 24-95 days)

 

Locusts look like ordinary grasshopper   ̶ most notably, both of them have big hind legs which assist them to hop or jump. They sometimes share the reclusive or solitary lifestyle of a grasshopper, too. In 1 square kilometre around 150 million locusts are present. And a swarm can eat as much as a day meal for 2500 people. It is the most economic destructing species till now. It is mostly found in desert areas.

During dry weather, recluse locusts are forced together in the patchy areas of land with remaining vegetation. The sudden crowding produces a happy chemical called Serotonin in their central nervous system, making them friendlier and promoting their rapid movement & more varied appetite.

After rain, the environmental conditions   ̶ moist soil & sufficient green plants create a perfect favourable circumstance for Locusts to produce rapidly & become more crowded together. In these conditions, they shift completely from their solitary lifestyle to a sociable or gregarious lifestyle. Locusts can change colour & body shape when they move to this lifestyle. Their stamina increases & even their brain gets larger.

Monitoring

Now, technologies have been invented to control Locusts but might be costlier to reach every poor farmer out there in rural areas to overcome. Monitoring is only the option to reduce damage, with the early detection & eradication of bands being the objective. Early intervention can be effective means of dealing with Locusts before the swarming phase is reached. Several organizations provide forecasts detailing regions that are likely to suffer from Locust in near future.

Control

In the past, people could do little to protect their crops from being destroyed by Locusts, like eating them to some extent might have been some consolation (Locusts contain 70% of protein content) But by the early 20^th century till now, mechanical efforts are being made to disrupt the development of the insects cultivating the soil where eggs were laid, catching hoppers with the help of machines, trapping them in ditches, crushing them with rollers and so on. The use of prevention & creative methods in Locust control through aerial spraying of ultra-low volume of concentrated insecticides in all potential breeding sites without interrupting environment or to the least possible way has been the ultimate goal.

Natural enemies of Locusts

Flies, Mites, Nematodes, Protozoans, Predators ( Nomadic birds, mammals, insects)