Termite and Manure Difference
| Termite | Manure |
|---|---|
| Termites (Isoptera) are an outsized and numerous cluster of insects, globally consisting of over 2800 species in regarding three hundred genera. The continent has bigger insect diversity than the other continent. Among the literature, there’s a definite classification between termites being delineated as ‘pests’ offensive structural timber, rangelands, crops and trees, and also the ecological literature that argues that they supply many system services. | The use of manures can enhance the fertility of the soil and the availability of nutrients. It plays a significant role to increase the organic matter of the soil. It can enhance nutrient (N, P, S) availability in soil. It can minimize the high pH of soil. It plays a vital role to increase soil fertility and is very helpful to deal with calcareous soil for better micronutrient uptake. But excessive use of fresh manures can cause termite attack which is very harmful to crops and reduced crop yield. |
Services Provided By Termites
- Play role in the consumption and mineralization of plant and animal materials.
- Increasing the variety of vegetation, animals, and microbic communities.
- Changing the chemical and physical properties of soils.
Role of Termite
The role of termites as soil engineers and processors, particularly as long as they’re often terribly lush represent big biomass and construct intensive networks of galleries and nests. Therefore, they need a big impact on pedogenesis, soil properties and functions. Soils inhabited by termites are higher drained, a lot of stable and have higher levels of soil organic matter. additionally to termites’ impact on ecosystems, need to be utilized in a research project, medicine, and technology (e.g., bionics, geology).
Issues Caused by Termite
Despite their ecological role, termites will become a problematic issue for agriculture, forestry, and construction. In agriculture, termites attack a spread of plants from the seed to the mature plant similarly as throughout storage. Seedlings are either cut just under or higher than the soil surface and frequently, they’re destroyed. Injuries to maturing plants happen either directly once termites enter and consume the crop roots, lodging the total plant or indirectly, as out-of-action plants become a lot of liable to pathogens.
Providing Substitute Sources of Food
There’s a typical belief that dead plant materials attract termites to measure trees. this can be a story as a result of fungus-growing termites, which are the foremost serious pests of trees, favour eating dead stuff. The answer is quite to produce termites with an alternate supply of food like mulching with wood and dry leaves. This could not solely divert termites from live plants but additionally, add an organic touch to the soil. Therefore, farmers ought to avoid deed blank, dry soil around seedlings or trees. it’s necessary to depart the maximum amount of plant junk (dry wood, leaves, grass) as doable on the soil surface once getting ready planting sites. Mulching with things like fodder, manure, wadding, wood ash or maize fodder has been shown to dramatically decrease insect attacks on live plants. Termites are drawn to the mulch instead of the crop or tree.
Maintaining Soil Organic Matter
The harm by several termites becomes severe on soils with low organic matter content. This can be a result of such soils don’t contain enough food for termites to measure on and that they resort to feeding on living stuff. Adding compost or well-decomposed manure to the soil and sowing manure legumes and canopy crops helps to extend the organic matter within the soil. However, the attack could increase if there’s an associated abundance of undecomposed organic matter like manure that pulls root-feeding termites. This could additionally increase nesting by ants, which are the worst enemies of termites.
Ensuring Overall Plant Health
Termites seldom attack healthy plants, however, could do therefore following the weakening of plants. something that weakens the plant-like drought, neglect of cultural practices, low soil fertility and lack of essential nutrients, overcrowding and competition, weed infestation, injury by fire and insects or fungal attack will predispose the plant to insect harm.
Intercropping and Mixed Cropping
These are the foremost effective cultural practices employed by small-scale farmers in a geographic region to manage insects that have specific host ranges. However, debatable results are according to termites. As an example, intercropping maize and beans resulted in a significant reduction of tunnelling by insects but did not scale back termite harm to the plants. On the opposite hand, intercropping in biology has been recommended as a method of retentive insect diversity within the crop to forestall them from achieving blighter standing. sure grasses are intercropped with totally different crops in the geographical region to repel termites. the intermixture of trees with crops can also scale back insect harm to either the crop or tree element. As an example, in Japanese Northern Rhodesia, planting maize between rows of tree stumps reduced insect harm to maize.
Crop Rotation
Planting constant crops on constant land year when year reduces soil fertility and structure. Crops growing in such conditions are going to be weaker and liable to termites. Crop rotation implies that different crops are matured on a constant piece of land annually. This will stop termites and build up and additionally facilitate the soil to recover nutrients.
Binish Ali1, Haroon Zaman Khan2 , Asif Iqbal3, Muhammad Farrukh Saleem4 and Muhammad Ashfaq Wahid5
5 Comments
Termites find dead wood and dead roots easy to surround and consume; but dry leaves are thin and may be blown around or shake in the wind, so they avoid making shelters on dry leaves. Can we avoid shaking of leaves so that the termites create a shelter on and consume the dry leaves? Covering the leaves with farm yard manure is a solution. Very little soil organic matter starves the termites and they survive by eating living plant parts of crops. So you recommend mulch cover of fodder, or manure for the soil for the termites to eat.
See the picture of land around a coconut palm We can see dry branches and twigs on the left and dried leaves in the middle and right. The termites made shelters around the twigs surrounding it fully. No shelters are seen on the dry leaves. The cow dung solution is spread on the right leaves; the right appears darker. We can expect the termites to find the dry leaves on the right to be stable and build their shelters around these dry leaves soon!
See the picture of land around a coconut palm We can see dry branches and twigs on the left and dried leaves in the middle and right. The termites made shelters around the twigs surrounding it fully. No shelters are seen on the dry leaves. The cow dung solution is spread on the right leaves; the right appears darker. We can expect the termites to find the dry leaves on the right to be stable and build their shelters around these dry leaves soon!