How to deal with leeches in rice fields? What is the medicinal value of leeches?

Leeches were found in all places with water 50 or 60 years ago, and they were everywhere. If you went into a paddy field and your feet were covered with stings, people who had never farmed would be scared and cry. It is not scary for rural people because they are used to it. Leeches mainly suck the blood of animals and reproduce very quickly in water. There are also leeches in wet forests. The stings of leeches in forests are particularly painful and itchy. Now you rarely see leeches in the fields, mainly because they are killed by pesticides and fertilizers. Leeches are most afraid of lime, pesticides and fertilizers, which are the nemesis of leeches and are also the most effective.

How to deal with leeches in rice fields

From an environmental protection perspective, we can apply 150 to 200 kilograms of fresh quicklime per acre of rice field when tilling the rice field for the first time, or when planting rice seedlings for intertillage. We can use the high temperature and alkali generated by quicklime when it comes into contact with water to kill leeches in the field. Quicklime can also change the soil quality, achieving dual effects.

The second method is to crush the rapeseed cake with a hammer, put it in a bucket, add some tea cake cakes in a ratio of 1:10, and soak it in boiling water for 2 hours. Then, at noon on a sunny day, use a ladle to evenly pour the tea cakes and tea cake water into 10 cm of field water. In less than two hours, all the leeches in the field will die. Moreover, the tea cake residue can be used as fertilizer without polluting the water source.

The third method is to use ammonium bicarbonate as a base fertilizer for rice after plowing the fields, and use the volatile ammonium gas in the ammonium bicarbonate to poison leeches.

In addition to these, other chemical pesticides we use when growing rice are killers of leeches and can eliminate leeches in rice fields.

What is the medicinal value of leeches?

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Leeches are recorded in "Shennong Bencao Jing". Traditional Chinese medicine believes that they can suck blood and have a therapeutic effect on human blood diseases. Therefore, it is believed that they can treat diseases such as blood stasis, female menstrual occlusion, bruises, and swelling.

Modern medical applications

Modern medicine uses leeches clinically to remove congestion caused by blood vessel blockage after surgery, as well as lumps, blood clots, etc.

In pharmacological research, people have discovered a kind of hirudin in the saliva of leeches. This is a natural thrombin inhibitor that can effectively inhibit the formation of venous thrombosis and disseminated intravascular coagulation.

Clinically, it is helpful for many cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (septic shock, atherosclerosis, hypertension, cerebral infarction, etc.). American scientists have also found a protein in leech saliva that can inhibit the growth of cancer cells, and Russian scientists have found prostaglandins in leech saliva.

Although leeches look scary, they also have therapeutic effects.

Do leeches really parasitize the human body?

What we call leeches are actually leeches, which generally cannot parasitize in the human body.

However, leeches can enter the human body through the urethra, vagina, anus, nostrils and other places. There was news on the Internet before that leeches live in the nasal cavity and throat trachea. However, these are individual cases. The parasitic part of leeches is very special. The humidity and oxygen in the environment here just meet the needs. But normal people will feel repulsive and expel foreign objects after causing discomfort.

Therefore, it is impossible for leeches to parasitize in the body. The environment in the digestive tract is generally acidic or alkaline, without oxygen, and does not have the conditions for survival.