All the information and footage was collected during the Field research to Thailand, supported by Creasia Group.
Three Main Steps:
What is
Lac
Lac is the resinous secretion of lac insects, of which the most commonly cultivated is Kerria lacca.
Cultivation begins when a farmer gets a stick that contains eggs ready to hatch and ties it to the tree to be infested.[1] Thousands of lac insects colonize the branches of the host trees and secrete the resinous pigment. The coated branches of the host trees are cut and harvested as sticklac.
The harvested sticklac is crushed and sieved to remove impurities. The sieved material is then repeatedly washed to remove insect parts and other material. The resulting product is known as seedlac. The prefix seedrefers to its pellet shape. Seedlac, which still contains 3–5% impurity, is processed into shellac by heat treatment or solvent extraction.
The leading producer of lac is Jharkhand, followed by the Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Maharashtra states of India. Lac production is also found in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, parts of China, and Mexico.
Life cycle of lac insects
The life cycle includes three stages: egg, nymph and adult.
A fertilised female lays 200-500 eggs by contracting its body in forward direction. Eggs are laid in the incubation chamber in which she is enclosed.
Cocoon Forming
As a crowlers the insects will find a spot to pirce the tree, situating themselves close to each other. They are fed on the phloem, which is the sugar of the tree. The insects then start the secretion process. As they digest the sugar their bodies is making the lac polymer. Surrounding themselves with this polymer, they form little cells that together slowly connects into their cocoon.
This cocoon will be their home for the ten months of their life. The female lays the eggs inside this cocoon and new born crawlers will break out of it to go and look for the next tree.
