At the end of 2019, a terrifying locust plague swept through most of Africa!
In eastern Kenya alone, a huge locust belt 60 km long and 40 km wide has formed! More than 10 million people were affected.
Most frighteningly, the locust swarm, which could move up to 150 kilometers per day, moved to Central Asia and marched into India and Pakistan in early 2020.
In February 2020, the Federal Government of Pakistan declared a national state of emergency!
This is a major locust plague that Pakistan has not encountered in more than 20 years, and large areas of farmland in Punjab province have been severely affected, losing 35,000 people's food rations every day!
Pakistan's Minister of National Food Security and Research, Bakhtiar, said he had no more than 20 planes that could be used to spray pesticides, but only three planes that could be used to control locusts, which could only take on more than 8,000 hectares of tasks.
In the face of the disaster of Pakistan's old friends, China naturally cannot stand idly by, and China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs sent a locust prevention and control working group to Pakistan on the 24th of the same month to begin a comprehensive investigation of the disaster situation and formulate a disaster prevention plan.
When the relief work against locusts was in full swing, there was news in China that China would send an army of 100,000 ducks to Pakistan to fight locusts!
So, can ducks really deal with locusts? How do 100,000 ducks get to Pakistan? What's going on in this matter?
Next, let's answer them one by one:
First, the terrible locust plague
Du Fu Youyun: Flying locusts cover the sky and the sun is colorless, and the wild old fields are tearful and bloody, which shows that the struggle between human beings and locusts has not stopped since ancient times!
After the founding of New China, our country has had locust plagues of varying degrees in one area almost every year. Especially in northern Jiangsu, until the mid-60s, there were locust plagues almost every year.
However, through environmental control and pesticide control, China has basically eliminated the locust plague in the mid-to-late 60s. Even in 2017, in Weifang, Shandong, there was a joke that the locust plague was caught by the people before it flew.
But this locust plague in Pakistan is very different from the old locusts.
Contributing to this locust plague are desert locusts, which are large and highly fertile. A single locust is not much harm, but rainfall at its breeding sites can lead to a surge in numbers.
A large number of locusts collide with each other, which will emit a different kind of pheromone, and attract more locusts to join, and once a large number of locusts are in a swarm, the color will change from the original green to yellow or black.
Once a locust colony is formed, there are 400,000 to 80 million per square kilometer, and the same weight of plants will be consumed every day, which is a disaster for the agriculture it covers!
At this time, the locust swarm will fly with the monsoon, and the flight speed can reach 150 kilometers per day. Crossing the Red Sea by the monsoon is not a problem, and there were even reports that in 1987 a locust swarm crossed the Atlantic Ocean from the African Caribbean.
Therefore, it can be said that the locust plague faced by Pakistan this time is a global disaster involving many countries. And our old friends of Pakistan Railway are unable to solve it themselves.
Second, ducks exterminate locusts
While the locust plague in Pakistan was in full swing, 100,000 ducks in Zhejiang rushed to the hot search.
A company called "Guowei Poultry" in Zhejiang expressed its willingness to donate 100,000 "Guoshao No. 1" duck seedlings to Pakistan to join the army of locust eradication.
So can ducks get rid of locusts? Let's first look at the effect of locust control, now we kill locusts, the main use is drug control and biological control two methods.
Among them, biological control methods are mainly to use the natural enemies of locusts, and chickens and ducks and other birds or birds are the "number one enemy" of locusts!
Compared with chickens, ducks have more obvious advantages, ducks are generally larger, eat more, a chicken can generally only eat 60~80 locusts a day, and a duck can eat nearly 200! Its efficiency is equivalent to three times that of chickens.
Moreover, the duck's mouth is wide and flat, which is suitable for destroying swarms of locusts, and can also eat the eggs hidden in the soil, playing a radical role.
Moreover, ducks are still social animals, and they act in groups, as long as they manage the leader, they can be driven away in large areas, suitable for teamwork and "large army combat".
Because it is a march in pieces, the ducks will carefully turn over the entire land during the operation, and the locust swarm has almost no fish in front of the duck.
In contrast, chickens are much worse, even large groups of chickens, they all act alone, that is, it is not good to drive the capture, and they will peck east and west in the process of capture, resulting in "locusts that slip through the net".
Moreover, the duck to cure the locust has existed since ancient times, and it has been tested in real combat many times!
In May 2000, a huge locust plague occurred in northern Xinjiang, affecting more than 200 hectares in Tacheng and Altay areas, and the density of locusts once reached tens of thousands per square meter!
To control locusts, the government urgently dispatched planes to spray pesticides. However, long-term use of pesticides is unrealistic, and pesticides do not cure the symptoms. It will not only increase the resistance of the next generation of locusts, but also kill the natural enemies of locusts, destroy the local ecological environment, and eventually lead to the return of locusts the next year!
In this case, locust control experts thought of using ducks, but after expert calculations, at least 100,000 ducks are needed to control the locust plague in Xinjiang, and the local duck raising time in Xinjiang is too short to deploy so many ducks.
Fortunately, with the coordination of the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 30,000 ducks were first transferred from Zhejiang, and then 70,000 ducks were drawn from all over the country.
Under the crushing of the duck army, the locusts were powerless to fight back. According to local herders, these ducks eat four or five times a day, go out at four or five o'clock in the morning, go to the nearby river to drink water when they are full, and return to their nests under the guidance of the head duck.
A duck can eat dozens of locusts at a time, and four or five times a day can completely annihilate locusts in its growth area. After calculation, a small duckling can control an area of 4~5 square meters, and an adult duck can control a larger area.
In just three months, all locusts on 6.6 hectares of high-quality grassland were wiped out by the army of ducks.
Since then, the local people in Xinjiang have developed the habit of raising ducks, not only have the locusts been eliminated, but the ducks that eat the locusts do not need feed, and the ducks can be sold at a good price.
Third, locust control concerns
It's just that biological locusts will also cause some people to worry, because swarms of locusts are actually poisonous.
Many people have mentioned that since there is a locust plague. Locusts eat food, so people prey on locusts and eat them, right? In fact, this is wrong.
Because swarms of locusts emit a chemical called phenylacetonitrile, a single locust cannot secrete these things, and after the locusts containing this compound die, they will be converted into another substance, "hydrocyanic acid", also known as hydrogen cyanide.
Does the name sound familiar? That's right, this is the cyanide that we often hear about on TV and anime! It has a pronounced bitter almond flavor and is highly toxic. Mild poisoning, heart beat, chest tightness and nausea; Severe poisoning will force convulsions and even coma.
Therefore, even birds, the natural enemies of locusts, are reluctant to eat after locusts gather in groups, which leads to the fact that once locusts are in groups, it is difficult to be directly destroyed by natural forces.
However, after observation, the ducks that ate the locust plague did not have any adverse reactions. After testing, no toxic ingredients were found in its flesh.
That is to say, the duck perfectly restrains the toxins in the locust's body, and the duck that eats the locust can still be eaten.
More importantly, the duck Guoshao No. 1 donated by Guowei Poultry Industry is specially bred to deal with locust plagues, with large size, high food intake, strong ability to cope with temperature changes, and can be sold at a good price after eating enough locusts.
Although duck control has various benefits, the trip abroad of these 100,000 ducks did not end up happening.
And there are three reasons why the duck army did not go:
The first is the environment. The main place where desert locusts breed is southern Pakistan, where the soil is desert sandy, surface water is relatively small, there are not too many mountains and rivers, and the ground is full of herbs and small shrubs.
Therefore, this dry and water-scarce environment is not suitable for duck survival, and the necessary water source for raising ducks limits the scope of use of ducks.
Moreover, desert locusts will land on low bushes and plants in large areas, unlike domestic locusts that hide in low grass, so it is very likely that ducks will not be able to eat them.
The second is the issue of efficiency. With a locust plague already breaking out, it is too late to rely entirely on ducks to govern.
The role of duck farming is to control locusts when they come, which can be prevented when there is no locust outbreak, and can also bring certain economic benefits.
Locust control is comprehensive, and it is not realistic to simply rely on ducks to control locusts on a large scale.
The third is epidemic prevention. The export of live poultry requires extensive inspection and quarantine work to prevent foreign contamination caused by local diseases. In addition, it was already during the new crown epidemic, and the epidemic prevention work also had to be done.
When these tests are all completed, the locust plague in Pakistan is almost crossed, and then the duck army will not be able to pass again.
Moreover, the airdrop of 100,000 ducks is also very large. It is also necessary to calculate the loss during transportation, the cost of which is not cost-effective compared to modern equipment and pesticides.
It is for these three reasons that in the end, the duck army did not go abroad to fight.
IV. New solutions
Although the duck army did not reach Pakistan, China did not give up the Pakistani brothers.
In March 2020, the locust prevention and control team returned to China with detailed investigation results and rescue plans.
The working group recommends the use of chemical pesticides and microbial pesticides and other control measures, the most commonly used chemical pesticides are malathion pesticides, and microbial pesticides choose to use the more mature sporozoids and Metasparaces.
On March 9 of the same year, 50 tons of malathion pesticides and 14 tractor-type high-efficiency sprayers departed from Shanghai Pudong Airport and arrived in Karachi. By the end of the following month, a total of 250 tons of malathion pesticides and 36 towed high-efficiency sprayers had been delivered to Pakistan.
In July of the same year, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs donated 12 DJI T16 plant protection drones to Pakistan.
At this time, Pakistan's anti-locust work has reached its end, and this batch of drones can consolidate the results and sprint to the final control work.
This batch of T16 plant protection drones is designed with eight nozzles and four pumps, which can spray pesticides up to 150 acres per hour, and 12 units can operate tens of thousands of acres of land!
The key is that these drones do not need to be used manually, and after setting the program, they can automatically spray pesticides and use electromagnetic waves to automatically search for pests, which can effectively prevent the recurrence of the disaster. Especially in areas with complex terrain, the advantages of drones are stronger than those of manual and large machinery.
epilogue
The locust plague in Pakistan was finally extinguished with the joint efforts of China and Pakistan, but this disaster still gives us a warning that it is a heavy warning.
In the modern society with advanced science and technology, many natural disasters still cannot be completely stopped by science and technology. Only by protecting nature can we finally resist natural disasters!
Perhaps, raising some ducks is a good choice!
Editor: Zhang Mo
Responsible editor: Lin Painting