Flying insects as potential targets: initial feasibility studies with airborne Doppler equipment in East Africa

Abstract

Flying locust swarms have already been found to provide particularly efficient three-dimensional targets for ultra-low-volume aircraft spraying. An exceptionally large proportion of the total insecticide applied can be picked up on the insects themselves, and kills exceeding one tonne of locusts per litre of insecticide have been assessed in the course of such operations. There is reason to believe that it was by aircraft spraying of swarms, often in flight, in Morocco during 1960, that locust control operations may for the first time have had a significant impact on the overall Desert Locust situation. Similar operations during 1968, in Ethiopia (with an outstanding Ethiopian senior pilot, Ato Abebe Wordofa) and again in Morocco, appear to have played a considerable part in suppressing the unusually short-lived recent upsurge of the Desert Locust, Schistocerca gregaria Forskal.