Desert Locust
The Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is a type of seasonal insect pest that affects palm trees and green cover in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It belongs to the short-horned grasshopper family and breeds in three seasons: winter, spring, and summer. Its swarms can be highly mobile, as it lives and breeds in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and eastern Sudan, and moves to Saudi Arabia and the African Sahel region in the fall and early winter.
Movement of the desert locust
The desert locust breeds after reaching maturity, and its offspring return in the spring, during March and April, to their habitat or move eastward or northward, or cross the Red Sea toward Yemen, where they breed in the winter before migrating to Saudi Arabia to breed in its northern and central regions.
The desert locust feeds on all green crops and lives in nature either in small groups or as swarms, which are the most dangerous. A swarm can fly at a speed of twenty km/h for eighteen consecutive hours and can also cross the Arabian Gulf to breed in Pakistan and India.
Control of the desert locust
The desert locust is controlled through several methods, including targeting its eggs by raising beetles and wasps that parasitize them, and plowing areas containing large quantities of eggs so they are exposed to weather conditions, insects, and birds. The eggs can also be sprayed with designated pesticides. If the eggs are in large areas of uneven, hard-to-plow land, markers are placed in those fields and monitored regularly until they hatch, after which they are treated.
During the hopper stage (Dabbah), agricultural fields are dusted with one of the powders designated for locust control, and bran is used as bait by mixing it with a locust-control pesticide. In cases of infestations in desert areas, grass is dusted in the evening or early morning when the hoppers are gathered under or on it, or bait is scattered around and under the grass. At sunrise, bait is spread in lines that cut across the hoppers’ path.
Sprayers can be used to eliminate all types of locusts, and flamethrowers may be used in the evening or early morning at gathering sites. Controlling locust swarms is considered one of the most challenging pest control operations and requires specialized equipment.
Saudi Arabia’s efforts to combat the desert locust
Saudi Arabia has worked to curb the spread of the desert locust, covering about seven hundred thousand ha with control operations between 2019 and 2021, using available methods to prevent its breeding and spread to neighboring countries
In 2022, the Desert Locust Control Committee for the Central Region, under the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), selected Saudi Arabia to chair its thirty-second session. In 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture in Saudi Arabia launched the “Balagh” service, which enables the submission of reports on desert locust gathering areas to accelerate the control of migratory plant pests and locusts across Saudi Arabia. This is implemented in line with plans to explore locust outbreak sites, monitor their movements, coordinate with scientific bodies to gather and exchange information, and ensure the provision of the necessary equipment and materials to combat them.
Sources
Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture.
Date palms in Saudi Arabia. King Abdulaziz Public Library. 2018.