Space Requirement for Mass Rearing of Two Common Indian Acridid Adults (Orthoptera: Acrididae) in Laboratory Condition

Being nutritionally rich, short-horned grasshoppers (acridids) can be used to produce high quality feed for livestock industries. For a sustainable supply to the feed manufacturing companies a huge acridid biomass should be obtained at a regular basis. For this purpose acridid farming is going to be essential. But for a successful farming their optimum density per unit space should be obtained. Keeping this in mind the space requirement for mass rearing of two multivoltine grasshopper species i.e. Oxya fuscovittata and Spathosternum prasiniferum prasiniferum were taken under consideration. The experimental jars having 10X10X25 cm space 3 were used as unit area. Results revealed that for mass culture, the density level 15 for O. fuscovittata and 25 for S. pr. prasiniferum per unit space are most suitable without any mortality. Density level 25 for O. fuscovittata and 35 for S. pr. prasiniferum are good for mass rearing as in these cases mortality rate is very less (i.e. 12% and 15.43% respectively). It was concluded that being smaller in size, more numbers of S. pr. prasiniferum could be kept per unit area compared to O. fuscovittata.