干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The current locust control strategy has been modified from what was originally a preventive strategy to a crisis management strategy. This is because instead of pre-empting swarm development through surveillance and timely control, locust management efforts are withheld until a plague becomes imminent. For this reason the current strategy has become heavily dependent on the use of quick-acting, broad spectrum and environmentally hostile pesticides. An alternative strategy which focuses on pregregarious locusts and whose objective is to keep locusts permanently solitarious through environmentally benign tactics is discussed. This strategy and these tactics would be based on a good understanding of locust biology, behaviour and ecology, as well as on the application of the integrated pest management (IPM) concept. Locust semiochemicals will be used either to attract nymphs and adults to contaminated sites or to disperse an already gregarising population, thus preventing development of swarms.