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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Migrating locusts swarms attack crops in Cedros

by

Radhica De Silva
2250 days ago
20190508

Lo­cust nymphs which hatched in the forests of Mo­ra last No­vem­ber have grown in­to adult in­sects and are now con­tin­u­ing to at­tack agri­cul­tur­al es­tates in the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

The lone Lo­cust Unit is strug­gling to deal with the pests and res­i­dents say swarms are en­ter­ing their yards and hous­es.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene on Wednes­day, thou­sands of lo­custs were seen fly­ing in the air. The sounds of their wings could be heard if you lis­tened care­ful­ly. The trunks of the trees were spat­tered with the in­sects.

Since Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed on the ac­tiv­i­ties of the in­sects on April 25, the swarms have ex­tend­ed out of Bowen Trace to­wards Chatham Beach Road, Ceme­tery Road, Kow­lessar Trace, Ash­ford Trace and Carl­yse Road.

The Lo­cust Unit which tracks the swarms an­nu­al­ly has been hard pressed to kill the pests be­cause the trac­tor used for spray­ing re­mains down.

Robert Reyes who owns 50 acres of lands at Chatham said the in­fes­ta­tion of in­sects has de­stroyed fields of short crops in­clud­ing patchoi, let­tuce, sweet pep­pers.

He said the on­ly crops saved were root crops like cas­sa­va, gin­ger and yam.

An­oth­er farmer Shel­don Khan said usu­al­ly spray­ing of the St Patrick area is done us­ing a wheel trac­tor.

"The spray­ing is done be­fore the lo­custs start to fly but since the wheel trac­tor went down they have not been able to cov­er all the ar­eas. That is why we are suf­fer­ing like this now," Khan said.

He called on the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat to pro­vide the nec­es­sary equip­ment to deal with the pests.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh in an in­ter­view said it would cost $14,000 to fix the trac­tor. He said the trac­tor was sup­posed to be fixed weeks ago.

"Over the past few weeks, farm­ers have com­plained about the larg­er in­fes­ta­tion of lo­custs on their farms and loss­es to their crops. There has been no re­dress from the Agri­cul­ture to Min­istry to deal with lo­custs," Teelucks­ingh said.

He added, "There are three mist blow­ers be­ing used and it is not mak­ing much im­pact on the vol­ume of lo­custs. "

Teelucks­ingh said pre­vi­ous­ly St Patrick West had two wheel trac­tors but one was re­moved some years.

"That trac­tor is now bro­ken down be­cause of a clutch and it will cost $14,000 to fix. We al­so need staffing. The con­tracts of ca­su­al work­ers are not be­ing re­newed and this has caused some strain. The Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture has to in­ter­vene," Teelucks­ingh added.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Ramb­harat said he read the Guardian sto­ry on the is­sue and sent it to the Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer Dr Si­mone Ti­tus. He re­ferred ques­tions to Ti­tus or per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Ly­dia Ja­cobs. How­ev­er, Ja­cobs said she will have to in­ves­ti­gate and is­sue a lat­er com­ment. Ja­cobs told Guardian Me­dia she has con­ferred with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary from Min­istry of Fi­nance and funds will be re­leased by the end of this week so that by next week the trac­tor will be able to re­paired to as­sist in the spray­ing.

Cy­cle of the lo­custs

Based on a re­search pa­per by Lilo­ry D Mc Comie, the life cy­cle and feed­ing ecol­o­gy of the Moru­ga grasshop­per Coscineu­ta virens thun­berg (Or­thoptera: Acri­di­dae) is syn­cro­nised with sea­son­al rain­fall. All species of lo­cust un­der­go three main life stages: egg, nymph and adult lo­cust. They feed di­ur­nal­ly and spo­rad­i­cal­ly and can feed be­tween 1,600 to 1,800 hours, ac­cord­ing to Mc Comie.

By Jan­u­ary, the hatched hop­pers be­gin to feed on the shrubs of the for­est. At this stage, the nymph can­not fly.

Sources said the lo­custs which are now feed­ing in the south­west­ern penin­su­la are be­lieved to have hatched last No­vem­ber at the Mo­ra forests and in For­est Re­serve, San­ta Flo­ra. When the show­ers be­gin in June and Ju­ly, the lo­custs be­gin to mi­grate by fly­ing. They re­main in one swarm and can clean out mass sec­tions of the forests. Be­cause the lo­custs were not erad­i­cat­ed when they were nymphs, res­i­dents be­lieve by Au­gust there will be mass dev­as­ta­tion of their fields.


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