Termites
Termites
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2. Termites:
- Commonly known as white ants
- Distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.
- Social insects and live in colonies (underground)
- Make small earthen mounds or passages which are visible above the ground.
Different castes: a) Reproductive castes:
- Colonizing individuals:
- Queen:
- King:
- Complementary castes:
b) Sterile castes
a) Mandibulate type b) Nasute type
Life cycle:
- In the rainy season, the colonizing forms leave their parent colony.
- Most of them fall prey to many predators
- left over mates and start building the nest in the soil
- Initially only few eggs are laid which develop into workers and take over the colony work.
- During first season the reproductive castes are not produced.
- Gradually the queen grows in size and number of eggs laid also increases.
- Reproductive castes when produced mature in 1-2 years.
- Queen is capable of laying many million eggs throughout her life.
Management
- Destroy the termitarium and kill the queen
- To avoid the attack of while ants in cultivated fields, care should be taken not to grow green manure crops or use raw FYM.
- Use insecticidal dust or drench the soil with chlorpyriphos (0.1%) at the time of field preparation.
3. Hairy caterpillars:
4. Cutworms:
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Last modified: Wednesday, 21 December 2011, 10:09 AM