Avoid scourge of midges with iPhone app

MOBILE phone "apps" users will be armed with a hi-tech weapon in the battle against one of Scotland's most persistent pests this summer.

• Midges love hot and wet weather

The Midge App, designed by a Scottish company, is part of the national midge forecast which resumes at the end of this week ready for the first big hatch of the summer of the biting beastie.

The service developed by Edinburgh-based Advanced Pest Solutions will be available free on iPhones and is linked to Google maps so the forecast can be almost to the spot people are calling from. There are five levels of midge threat – with five being the highest.

Last year saw record low recordings at the 15 official midge traps around the country. But top expert Dr Alison Blackwell warned that a spell of hot and wet weather would be "perfect" breeding conditions for midges, which are due to emerge in numbers at the end of the week.

Dr Blackwell said: "We are launching the online midge forecast by the end of the week and there will be some new innovations such as the Midge App. It will mean people will be able to tell how bad the midges are, and where they are, from their mobile phone. It will be one phone pest people really want!

"The winter may have taken its toll on many midges, but it could be quite good news for them overall – because their predators suffered more. We shall have to wait and see the results with interest. I have a feeling we may be seeing quite a lot of midges this year.

"Insects survived the last ice age and were around long before humans. Midges are quite susceptible to the weather and their survival will go down in the wrong conditions for them. But they will not go away forever.

"Midges like warm and wet weather. Midges also need a blood meal within a week or they will not survive. But midges are very resilient. They will sit their in the ground waiting days for their meal."

Two million midges weigh just a kilo – and one square metre of land will contain about 500,000 of the insects. Only the female bites. The peak time for the midge hatch is the end of May and the first week in June.

The flying midge lives for between two days and two weeks depending on weather conditions. During this time the female can lay up to 170 eggs in as much as three batches. In a normal year there are two to three generations of midges born during the season.

The first batch of midges emerges at the start of the season from their over-wintering in the soil. These quickly bite, mate and lay their eggs. These eggs will then rapidly develop through the full midge-cycle to emerge as adults towards the end of July. These second generation midges then repeat the bite, mate and lay cycle.