Hey everyone, again welcome to integrateblogger.com
Today, we are going to tell about “Locusts Attack”
As we know this year 2020 is not worth from the beginning. Firstly coronavirus, then due to lockdown, economic recession, cyclone and earthquake.
Now one more attack i.e. Locusts attack.
So your first question would be there that
What are Locusts ???
So locust is an insect which is quite similar to grasshopper and cricket. in fact all these three insects belong to the same family. Locust generally found in desert regions and the unique thing about this is that as compared to grasshopper and cricket. It exist in two phase.
It has two form which is normally not seen in grasshopper and crickets.
These forms are when it is present alone, then it looks somewhat like, this is called solitary phase.
But when it is present in crowds, the environmental conditions are congenial. for example after recent rains with trees and plan in full bloom. Then Date transform their forms completely. Then took somewhat like, this is called Gregarious phase.
This metamorphosis of form changes everything about them, their behaviour, habits and appearance.Everything is different in the solitary phase and the gregarious phase.
source:HINDUSTAN TIMES
So we don’t have any harm with their solitary phase but problem arises when they exist in crowds and are in their gregarious phase, when they are Yellow and black in colour. in the space they are able to eat more and in more varieties of food. their endurance increases and their movement become more rapid even their brain size become larger.
what‘s Interesting is that they can transform into the gregarious phase from the solitary phase at any point of time in lives as long as environmental conditions for it are congenial environment conditions are- recent rains, moist soil and lush vegetation around.
 |
| source:HINDUSTAN TIMES |
The swarms of these locusts are created in their gregarious phase and these swarms destroy everything in their way because, like i said earlier, their eating habits change so much that they can eat almost everything like leaves, shoots, flower, fruits, seeds, stems, barks- they can eat it all. They can eat almost all types of crops or non crops- be it wheat grass, fruit trees or date palms that is why complete destruction follows wherever they go.
HOW BAD ARE LOCUST PLAGUES???
Can you think “how large can one swarm be??”
It is found that the swarm found in kenya in 2020 was 40km by 60km in dimension (2400sq. kilometers) and in a swarms, there can be more then 150 million locusts within one square kilometer.A swarm can eat as much as 2,500 people in one day. So now you can imagine the extent of its scale and how much destruction it can cause and this is why it is said that the locusts are a kind of species that have the most economic impact on the entire planet as compared to any other animal species.You can the regions in which this happens- Africa, Middle east, Pakistan and the western part of india. They are found in larger numbers here because of the large extent of the desert areas in this region and these are the areas in which they cause the most destruction.
HISTORY OF LOCUST PLAGUES
The locust attack in india today is the worth in the past 27 years in india, 1993 was the last time conditions were so bad. But this is not a recent phenomena, these locust attracks have been happening for thousands of years throughout the human history even ancient Egyptians had drawn locusts on their tombs which tells tht there had been locusts attack even in that age. These tombs are dated around 2400 BC. This is the reason why they are mentioned in a lot of religious texts - for example, Bible and Quran mention locust plagues. It is believed that the locust plague mentioned in bible happened in reality in Egypt in around 1400BC.But, climate change is indirectly held responsible for the locusts attacks happening today.
CAUSES OF RECENT ATTACK
The sequence of event of it actually very interesting the Indian Ocean is Usual due to the change The rain become more extreme due to the heating of the ocean torrential rains hit Africa around the time of December 2019 East Africa include Kenya, Uganda , Ethiopia, Somalia.
These countries were badly flooded during December 2019.People affected due to this floods and torrential rains, congenial environmental conditions are created for the locusts. I had Previously told This becomes a great opportunity for the locust to breed and change into gregarious phase. So the locust began to breed in huge number there and a plague hit East Africa. So around February 2020, there was a huge locust plague in Africa after which these songs of locust begin to travel in East travel to Iran, Pakistan and now by the time of may this plague of the cyclone that had hit Bengal move in such direction and in such a way that they were further pushing the swarm of the locusts towards India.they would not have normally travelled this way but they further moved in this direction because of the cyclone wind and this is experting a very negative influence on Madhya Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana.
SOLUTIONS
So the main question is what are the solutions to fight this locust plague?
The first and most common solution adopted by most of the countries most frequently Is simple spraying them with pesticides and insecticides On the ground or in the air with the help of a Helicopter and then they would die.The problem with this solution is that this has a lot of negative impacts spraying All negative impact in children on the environment the people and their food,it exerts negative impact on other things as well and pesticides need to be sprayed in use quantity in order for it to show effect.
 |
| image credit: fly dragon |
Another solution could be the use of Eco Friendly pesticides experts have observed that the Eco friendly pesticides-the one that do not harm the environment do not kill them effectively they take some time to show effect.Hence, they are not as effective.
 |
| source:india today |
The third is the use of loud noises. The locust flee from any kind of noise like DJs, music on a loudspeaker or any kind of loud noise make them scarper.This is a solution that our former have implemented but the problem with this solution is obvious it can be implemented on a very short scale.And if your drive a way the locusts from one place then they are going to attack another but there is another unique and interesting solution which was tested out in Pakistan.
This solution was tested out in a small scale in Pakistan’s OKara district.Basically the farmers were asked to trap this local and collect them and sumit them in bags.they would be paid in return of this and then these locust would be milled and used as chicken feed.That is, they would basically become food for chicken and help in feeding them because locusts are an extremely great source of protein.Now this solution extremely innovative think about it the farmer also making profit in the form of money given to collect them and it is also generating profit when it is being used as a chicken feed the credit of implementing this solution goes to Muhammad Khurshid, he is a civil servant in the ministry of national food security and research in Pakistan Johar Ali - a bio-technologist of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council.It was his idea and he said that first broke this idea to the people, then everyone laughed. Nobody thought that this idea could seriously be implemented in real.So, what is the math behind this idea then the math is that he believes that first of all, the farmer can trap them easily with and these locusts do not fly in the air at night time so they can be trapped very easily at night. They say that when the farmer collect these locusts and deliver them in bags then they are paid 20 Pakistani rupees per kg. In India, this would amount to be around Rs 9 per kilo.The farmer being this amount when they collect them in bags and submit them and he also believes that the number of locusts a farmer can trap overnight. He can earn 20,000 Pakistani rupees, ( i.e, around 9,000 indian rupees) in exchange for that. He also claimed that these locusts are a source of profit for the animal feeding industry as well because when these locusts would be used as chicken feed, they have 70% proteins. As compared to soybeans which is presently used in chicken feed and have only 50% protein content. So this is profitable for even Pakistan as a country..
THANKS FOR VISITING OUR SITE
STAY CONNECTED
Explained by > VISHAL KUMAR GUPTA
⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇
){kind=link}
0 Comments