The appearance of locusts could have been predicted, but now farmers are refusing to fight them because the harvest has “burned down.”
It was possible to predict the appearance of locusts and predict their spread in Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions if monitoring of swarms had been carried out. This was stated in a comment to SuperAgronom.com by Serhiy Kornyushenko, the manager for the development of agricultural technologies of the Southern region of LNZ Group.
The climate has changed, the prolonged drought contributed to the spread of locusts, but its appearance and directions of spread could have been predicted by monitoring swarms and controlling the beginning of migration.
“Let’s say this, no one conducted such monitoring, mainly due to military operations, because the locusts spread from the front-line regions. Now it is very difficult to fight locusts, complex measures are needed. Previously, about 20 years ago, when there was an outbreak of locusts in the Donetsk region, aviation was used for a quick response. Unfortunately, aviation is not available now due to, again, military operations, so the fight against locusts is becoming more complicated,” says Serhiy Kornyushenko.
In addition, the specialist says, in the southern regions, the same Mykolaiv region, sunflowers are simply “burning” due to drought and heat, farmers no longer hope for a harvest. Accordingly, they have neither the means nor the desire to fight for such crops.
“Locusts fly from place to place quite quickly, so you need to react very quickly. Systemic insecticides do not solve the problem. Well, the crops have been treated, but the locusts will not die until they eat the treated plants. There are fumigation machines that spray insecticide, but here too you need to react very quickly. In addition, you cannot predict the direction of the wind, and locusts often fly with the wind,” explains Serhiy Kornyushenko.
