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anniev123

grasshoppers

anniev123
9 years ago

Last year we had a grasshopper infestation here in Cleveland Co. It was awful! This year we are seeing small grasshoppers everywhere again. We don't want to use chemicals. Does anyone else have this problem? How do you get rid of them organically?

Comments (3)

  • slowpoke_gardener
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I have noticed a lot of small grasshoppers also. They will have to get much worse before I use chemicals. Chickens and large birds seem to like them, but I don't have any of them either.

    I am just think out loud now, but I have quite a crop of smaller birds (mostly sparrows) that are eating something in the garden. I may place a few pans of bird seed in the garden to make sure there is always something there for them to eat, and maybe they will stop off there first, but I have never tried that. I think I will also build more bird houses.

    Larry

  • Macmex
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thankfully I have seen very few, here in the Tahlequah area. Last year it was a true plague. I managed to save a good percentage of my garden, though it wasn't easy. No powder or spray seemed to affect them. I would not use a strong pesticide. What actually worked best for me was to purchase a small shop vacuum, run an extension cord to the garden, and vacuum them before the first glimmer of dawn. They tend to sit on the wire fence and higher plants during the night. Before dawn they are slow moving (sleepy?) I vacuumed between 2 and 4 gallons of them a day for over a month, bagging them and freezing them while I was at work. When I got home from work I'd dump them out for our poultry, thus cutting on feed bills.

    This is a lot of work. But it did indeed help. I wish I had thought to try it while they were nymphs. They were several inches long before I hit upon this approach.

    George

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    The organic products that will give you good control of them when they are small (1/4" to 1/2" in length) are Semaspore, Grasshopper Attack or Nolo Bait, all of which contain a microorganism called Nosema locuste which kills grasshoppers. It is absolutely imperative you use these products in the cooler weather of April and May when you first start seeing young grasshoppers. It is much less effective on older ones and much less effective once the temperatures really heat up. (I suspect the hotter temperatures kill the Noseuma locuste microorganisms.) If you decide to purchase and use one of these products, do not get more than you need because, since it is a living organism, it has a limited shelf life. I know that Nolo Bait has the expiration date printed on the container, and it is the one I usually found in stores in Texas when we lived there. Semaspore is the one labeled for use in OK, which Nolo Bait is not. This type of grasshopper bait will last longer if you refrigerate it after opening it, assuming you don't use it all in one application. I like to apply it a couple of times a couple of weeks apart. It only affects grasshoppers and a couple of their relatives.

    I usually can find these products at a couple of different places down in Fort Worth at this time of year. I am not sure how easy they are to find in OK. I know that some people in central OK have found Semaspore in past years, especially in nurseries that carry a full selection of organic products. Sometimes you can find it at farm feed-and-seed supply type stores. Or, you can order it online.

    We have acreage so in the years when I use it, I usually get a 5-lb. bucket of it. If you are on a piece of property that is an acre or less, then it is likely a one-lb. package would be plenty.

    I'll link one source of one of these products below.

    This is the organic product that has given me the best control of grasshoppers early in the season.

    I rarely use chemical pesticides and I don't use the kind you spray for grasshoppers, having found they really are not effective on grasshoppers at all. (All the ranchers around us sprayed them like crazy in the grasshopper outbreaks of the early 2000s and had grasshoppers all over the place anyway. I used Semaspore and didn't have nearly as many grasshoppers.) However, there is one product I'll use to kill adult grasshoppers that contains a very small percentage of Sevin in a grasshopper bait. It doesn't kill off all your beneficial insects because it is a bait that must be eaten and the beneficials don't eat it. It is the only thing that has worked for me in July and August when hordes of grasshoppers fly in from surrounding fields. I can provide you with a link for that product if you're interested, or with a link to a recipe that tells you how to make your own from a handful of easily-purchased ingredients.

    I've used the Nosema locuste products since the 1990s, but don't use them every year. I only use them when there are lots and lots of tiny grasshoppers in spring, which for me is probably 3 or 4 years out of 10. Grasshopper populations cycle up and down from year to year, so it isn't always necessary to do anything about them. I just ignore them in an average year, but do fight them with everything I've got in a bad year....including vacuuming them up like George does. We have free-range chickens who roam our property all day eating pests and who are locked securely in predator-proof coops at night. They do a lot of pest control, but in a bad grasshopper year, even the chickens get sick of eating hoppers and won't even eat them after a certain point. I do feed the wild birds and have birdbaths in my garden plots for them. They help a lot with hopper control. Guineas are great at pest control and we had them for about a decade here, but they are hard to control and their constant yacking draws predators that come and kill them. After our last ones were killed off (we lost about 2 dozen in the year of the cougar), we never replaced them. I really miss them. One guinea can eat two pounds of grasshoppers per day, if you can keep the guineas alive. Guineas might be an option for you if you're in a rural area, but I wouldn't have them in town. You'd be in trouble with the neighbors and likely with animal control all the time because they are noisy and they roam and will not stay on your property. Luckily, my rural neighbors didn't mind when our guineas came onto their property and ate grasshoppers---they welcomed them with open arms.

    You can click on the link below to see one of the products containing Nosema locuste and to read about how it works.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Semaspore for Grasshopper Control

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