Insect Pests of Vegetable, Ornamental and Spice Crops (2+1)

Termites

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

• Workers:
• Soldiers:

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:

• Discussed earlier

4. Cutworms:

• Discussed earlier