Lac Culture .Lac Cultivation .processing and uses of lac culture and enemies of lac culture.

 LAC CULTURE (lac insects)

Hemipteran members of the Lacciferidae and Tachardinidae families exude lac all over their bodies as a form of defence. The Lac Insect is a member of the Laccifer superfamily in the Hemipteran order Coccoidea. On total, 22 species have been identified in the Indian subcontinent under the genus Laccifer.

India continues to be regarded as the world's top producer of lac. Burma has been trading lac since the fifteenth century. China has a lac culture that probably stretches back 4,000 years, and they utilise lac to colour their leather goods and silk. About 65% of the world's entire output is produced in India. 40% of the lac produced in all of India is produced in Bihar and Jharkhand.

The lac bug is cultivated commercially under the name Laccifer lacca (=Tachardia lacca). On host plants including ber, Zizyphus mauritiana, palas, Butea monosperma, and kusum, Schleichera oleosa, it is mostly cultivated in India and Bangladesh.

The viviparous female insect gives birth to roughly 1000 nymphs that are deep crimson in colour and have black eyes. The larvae gregariously settle down on an appropriate area of the host plant. The larvae begin secreting lac a day or two after settling, with the exception of the rostrum, spiracles, and tip of the abdomen. As a result, it is enclosed in a lac cell that gradually enlarges to match the insect's growth. Before becoming mature, the insect goes through two moults. While female larvae generate oval lac cells, male larvae produce lengthy lac cells.

Lac Cultivation

In lac culture, there are two critical steps: inoculation and cropping. Inoculation can be done by artificially infecting tender branches with brood lac sticks that are harvested right away from mature lac trees. The host tree's branches are linked with the brood lac sticks in bundles of two or three, allowing for the greatest possible contact with the branches.

According to the Hindi calendar, lac farming occurs during the four seasons of Kartiki, Aghani, Baisakhi, and Jethwi. Kartiki's crop season, from inoculation to harvest, lasts from July to November; Aghani's crop season, from July to February; Baisakhi's crop season, from November to July; and Jethwi's crop season, from February to July.

The brood sticks are connected next to the delicate, growing branches in such a way that maximum contact between the growing shoots occurs when the young shoots appear on the branches. The larvae appear and settle on delicate shoots within a week or two.

Processing Of Lac

Scraping is used to get rid of lac encrustations on host plant twigs. The resulting raw lac is often referred to as scraped lac or stick lac. Small grains of sticklac are crushed, sieved, gently washed with alkaline water, and dried. This product, also known as seed lac, grainlac, or chowrie, is semi-refined and is then further refined through a technique of heat melting, filtering, and stretching into thin sheets that are then broken into brittle flakes known as shellac.

As an alternative, button lac, which are circular discs, can be made from purified lac resin. Raw lac can be refined using a solvent method to produce de-waxed, decolored lac as the final product. Sodium hypochlorite can also be used to bleach the typically amber-colored resin to produce bleached lac, which is white in colour. For coating food items like confections and pharmaceutical tablets, bleached lac is in high demand.

With an annual production of over 18,000 metric tonnes of raw lac, India is the world's leading lac producer. Approximately 85% of the nation's output is exported to other nations. Some of the largest lac importers in the world are the USA, Germany, and Egypt.

Uses Of Lac

The many uses of lac can be summed up as follows:

Food processing, the cosmetics and toiletry industry, the printing and varnish industry, the coating of fruits and vegetables, the electrical industry, the leather industry, the adhesive industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the perfumery industry, and other industries all employ lac resin.

India has long used lac dye (erythrolaccin) as a cosmetic for the skin and a dye for wool and silk. It is a common dye for leather goods in China. Synthetic dyes have replaced the usage of lac as a dye. It is applied in medicine to prevent obesity and protect the liver.

Lac is used in food, confectionery and drinks sector and textile business.

In polishes for shoes, floors, cars, etc., lac wax is employed. It is employed in electric insulation, paper lamination, headwear proofing, and the covering of fossils and artwork.

Lac is a chemical compound that is used to make pyrotechnics, crayons, bottle sealers, lipstick, enamel, tailor's chalk, printing inks, phonograph records, and crayons.

Natural Enemies Of Lac

• Predator's

Lac is greatly harmed by two moth predators.

Eublemma amabilis The larva, which is a dirty white colour and feeds on both larvae and adults, burrows through the lac encrustation. It pupates inside the tunnel, and when it comes out as an adult, it lays its eggs close to the lac encrustation.

.Holcocera pulverea The brownish larva causes similar harm to the aforementioned species. Pupa is yellowish-brown and significantly larger.

• Parasites

The parasitic insects listed below feed on lac insects.

Tetrasticus purpurens, Tachardiaephagus tachardiae, Eupelmus tachardiae, Paraecthrodryinus clavicornis, and Erencyrtus dewitzi.

The aforementioned natural enemies can be managed by upholding good cultures and, before inoculation, enclosing the brood lac sticks in wire mesh to prevent natural enemies from emerging and causing re-infestation.

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