Since the beginning of summer this year, many places in the western United States have been hit by heat waves, with temperatures hitting record highs. This not only brought troubles to the daily life of the local people, but also gave birth to serious crop diseases and insect pests, resulting in extensive losses of crops.
Since June, Mormon crickets have invaded several major agricultural states in the western United States. The infestation began in western Nevada, then spread to northern Utah and southern Wyoming, and then into Idaho, Oregon, Washington state, Colorado and other places. Initial estimates will kill millions of acres (1 Acre equals approximately 0.405 hectares) of farmland was damaged.
The Mormon cricket is not a cricket, but a katydid in the order Orthoptera. This kind of insect cannot fly, but by jumping and crawling, it can move up to 2 kilometers per day, and it has a strong vitality.
Experts pointed out that this year’s abnormal climate in the western United States, with a lot of rain in winter and spring, and sudden high temperature in summer, led to a surge in the number of Mormon crickets, and finally evolved into “the worst Mormon cricket disaster in memory.” These insects form swarms of thousands and then sweep across western wheat, sunflower and alfalfa fields in waves. Mormon crickets crushed by vehicles can even form kilometers of dark red stripes along highways.
Local farmers have used equipment such as leaf blowers, snowplows and even forklifts to keep swarms of Mormon crickets away from their fields, and have called on the federal government to spray pesticides from the air into the pest’s path to protect crops, with limited success. In Idaho, where the disaster was not too severe, the local agricultural department said in early July that they had received about 62% more applications from farmers for help killing Mormon crickets than in the same period last year.
At present, the total damage caused by the insect infestation to crops has yet to be assessed. In Utah alone, the 2001 and 2003 Mormon cricket infestation caused as much as $25 million in crop damage, according to the USA Today website.
Meanwhile, the corn earworm infestation is also becoming apparent in the western agricultural regions as the harvest season begins in August. According to local media reports, 30% to 40% of the sweet corn crop in a major agricultural area in Colorado has been damaged by the disease and insect pest.
Corn earworm is a kind of agricultural pest, which is very destructive to cereal crops, especially corn. Corn earworms also attack tomatoes, peas, cabbage, lettuce, okra, peppers, spinach, squash and sweet potatoes, among others. Colorado farmers are now seeking government support to deal with the sudden disaster, warning corn growers farther north to prepare.
Melissa Schreiner, an entomologist at Colorado State University in the United States, told the Colorado Sun that one of the factors that contributed to this year’s widespread corn earworm infestation is the high temperature of the past few weeks.
More experts and studies point to abnormal heat and drought as the main causes of Mormon cricket and corn earworm plagues in the western United States this year, but the bigger problem is that short-term extreme weather is behind long-term climate change, which will change some agriculture. The living habits of pests make them more difficult to control and cause greater losses.
In a 2021 report, researchers at the University of Zagreb in Croatia pointed out that the body temperature of insects depends on the ambient temperature, so temperature may be the most important environmental factor affecting insect behavior, distribution, development and reproduction. The increase in temperature may lead to the expansion of the geographical distribution of insects and the increase in the survival rate of overwintering.
North Carolina State University researchers warn that as the climate warms, some insect species that previously disappeared in winter may survive due to warmer soil temperatures. They published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2022, saying that the researchers specifically studied the overwintering success rate of corn earworms, and predicted that by 2099, the range of corn earworms suitable for overwintering in the United States will expand a lot. A pest will be able to overwinter in the traditional U.S. corn belt, and the impact on global food production will be dire.
“Climate change exacerbates the pest problem,” the paper’s authors warn. “As a result of climate change, farmers are expected to face new and severe pest problems in the coming years.”
(Source of article: Xinhua News Agency)
Article source: Xinhua News Agency
Higher temperatures in the western U.S. have led to serious crop diseases and pests this summer
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2023-07-31 12:08:55
