Indian White Ant (Termite)
Odontotermes obesus
📖 Description
Indian White Ant (Termite) is a serious subterranean pest of agricultural crops across the Indian subcontinent, particularly in rainfed and irrigated dryland agriculture. The most damaging species is Odontotermes obesus, which builds large underground colonies and forages on plant roots, lower stems, and fallen organic matter. Termite damage is most severe during dry periods when plants are stressed and termites seek moisture in plant tissues. Sugarcane, wheat, cotton, groundnut, and plantation crops like coconut and tea suffer significant losses. Management is challenging because termites forage underground, making contact difficult. Soil application of entomopathogenic fungi (Metarhizium, Beauveria), neem cake, and judicious use of soil insecticides are key control strategies.
⚠️ Symptoms to watch for
- Hollow tunnels of soil on stems and trunks, wilting and drying of plants, eaten roots and lower stems, lodged sugarcane, dead seedlings, termite mounds near fields, damage increases under dry soil conditions
🩹 Treatment
- Apply chlorpyrifos 20 EC @ 5ml/L as soil drench, use entomopathogenic fungi (Metarhizium anisopliae) in soil, destroy termite mounds, apply neem cake @ 250 kg/ha as basal, drench base of plants with imidacloprid
🌿 Organic treatments
- Apply Metarhizium anisopliae @ 5 g/L as soil drench, apply neem cake @ 250 kg/ha as basal, drench with 5% NSKE, apply Beauveria bassiana @ 5 g/L in soil, destroy termite mounds manually, flood infested fields to drown colonies, apply castor or karanj cake
🧪 Chemical treatments
- Chlorpyrifos 20 EC @ 5 ml/L soil drench, Imidacloprid 17.8 SL @ 1 ml/L drench, Fipronil 5 SC @ 2 ml/L soil drench, Carbofuran 3G @ 25 kg/ha in soil, Bifenthrin 10 EC @ 2 ml/L
🛡️ Prevention
- Destroy termite mounds before planting, deep plough to expose colonies, practice crop rotation, remove crop residues that harbor termites, use well-decomposed farmyard manure, avoid raw organic matter in soil, plant resistant varieties, maintain proper soil moisture, use treated wood for fences and stakes, apply biopesticides preventively in endemic areas
🪴 Affected plants
- Sugarcane, Wheat, Maize, Cotton, Groundnut, Pulses, Coconut Seedlings, Tea, Eucalyptus, Many Crops and Tree Seedlings, Wooden Structures
🦋 Natural predators
- Ants, Birds, Spiders, Frogs, Lizards, Dragonflies (catch alates during swarming)
🌱 Host plants
- Saccharum officinarum, Triticum aestivum, Gossypium spp., Arachis hypogaea, Cocos nucifera, Camellia sinensis
🔄 Lifecycle
- Termite colonies contain a queen (lays thousands of eggs daily for 10-20 years), king, workers, soldiers, and winged reproductives (alates).
- Eggs hatch in 30-60 days.
- Nymphs develop into workers, soldiers, or reproductives based on colony needs.
- New colonies form when alates swarm during early monsoon rains, shed wings, and pair up.
- Colony establishment takes 3-5 years to reach damaging size.
📅 Season
- Active year-round, peaks during dry periods (Apr-Jun) and at sowing/harvest of crops
🔎 Appearance
- Small, soft-bodied, cream to white insects with a brownish head.
- Workers are wingless and eyeless; soldiers have large dark heads with mandibles; reproductives (alates) are dark brown with two pairs of equal-length wings that they shed after swarming.
💥 Damage level
- High
🔁 Reproduction rate
- Slow
🗺️ Geographic regions
- Indian Subcontinent
- Southeast Asia
- Africa
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