Mark;

You're not alone. They're abundant here! Every type of leaf-hopper that exists lives in my yard. I swear.

ChickenCouple,

They're everywhere. Oklahoma has at least 130 species of grasshoppers. Imagine that. Before we moved here, I thought I'd seen grasshoppers....I'd seen yellow ones, green ones, black ones, etc. Oh what a sheltered life I had lived growing up in the city, because then we moved here and I found out there were a lot more in all sizes and colors. We have grasshoppers with red legs. Grasshoppers with yellow bodies and green legs. Grasshoppers with green bodies and yellow legs. Grasshoppers with 'wings' that are orange. (They look like butterflies when they fly.)

See the link for a little info on grasshoppers in Oklahoma.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fact Sheet on Grasshoppers

I have to admit that I love grasshoppers from my days as a child catching them for hours on end and feeding them to the fish in my pond. I love having many kinds and having them all around my house and small pond, but if they were eating my blueberries or pecan trees I would probably change my mind on them.

I don't understand how poison and organic are mutually exclusive. To the grasshopper, it is either a poison or not, no matter where it comes from. I would worry about whether it hurts non-targeted pests or plants more so than whether or not it is organic.

Dawn-

I have read mixed things about Spinosad. It's good to see that you have experience with it, and it's had no effect on the hoppers. That was what I expected. I have also read about Nosema Locuste, but can't find any that's not expired. As for chickens...I love the idea, but I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. They'd pitch a holy fit if I had chickens in my backyard.

The molasses method sounds interesting. It's definitely worth a shot. As for EcoBran...I'm OK with Sevin as long as it's not getting sprayed on my plants. I'm not "certified organic," nor do I ever plan to be. I just want to make sure the veggies are safe for my family to eat.

The hoppers in my yard are still bright green and pretty small (I'm guessing 1/2 inch or so.) I hope I can still find a way to control them. They're WAY worse this year than last for me, but I also have 4x as much in my garden this year. I'll check out planet natural and see what I can find (specifically, Semaspore). They are devouring the leaves on my Bhut Jolokia and Habanero varieties. Really frustrating that they're not interested in the "common" varieties, but they go after the ones that are most difficult to grow. ARGH! I'm ready to go out there with a blow torch. My 5 year old son went "hopper hunting" with me last night. We stomped over 30 hoppers in less than a half hour...and we have a small back yard.

I do have a few bird feeders up, but they don't even seem to make a dent.

Thanks everyone else for your input. I will NOT lose this war!!!

Scott,

I just hate straying from my organic philosophy. (sigh) Not that I haven't done it before...I used Round-Up a couple of years ago, and have used chemical fire ants killers in the lawn before Concern became available. Sometimes, though, the organic 'solution' is not a good one, and there are some pests for which I doubt a viable, affordable, easy-to-use organic solution exists. There is only so far that I will go to do things organically. For example, although some people have good luck with injecting either Bt 'Kurstaki' or beneficial nematodes directly into the stems of squash plants to kill SVBs, I'm just not willing to spend my time and money doing that.

However, having said all that, there also are organic products I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, including pyrethrins, rotenone and sabadilla. It doesn't matter to me that they are organic because they're linked to various health issues in people, domestic animals or wildlife. It surprises people sometimes when I tell them I don't use pyrethrins, for example, but just because it is organic doesn't make it safe and I love my cats and dogs (and most of our wildlife--and you know which ones I don't like!) more than I hate the pests the pyrethrins would target.

I hope that the EcoBran works because if it does, it is a solution I can live with. However the last time grasshoppers were this bad, Fred sprayed his garden with Sevin and something, maybe his hay pastures, with Dimlin (or something whose name sounded like Dimlin) and it seemed he had more grasshoppers afterwards than before he sprayed, even after multiple sprayings. I remember that he was very frustrated and complained that when you stood and looked at his grass, the grass was moving as if the wind was gently stirring, but there was no wind---it was the movement of the grasshoppers. He said that over and over "the grass is moving its so full of them". However, he's been farming and ranching here for virtually his whole 88 years, so it isn't like he is not familiar with grasshoppers and certainly he knows that's how they are in a bad year.

Mark,

Because I have to drive all over southern Oklahoma and North-Central Texas to find all the organic supplies I need, I just do a big order of all of them somewhere in the Jan-Feb. timef rame. The shipping costs more than I like, but it would cost us a lot in gasoline to go to the nurseries that carry organics, so ordering them and paying for shipping may not save me any money but likely doesn't cost more than driving all over looking for them. We're not especially close to anything, so even a 'simple' trip to Wal-Mart, Lowe's or Home-Depot is a 60-70 round-mile-trip. I usually order my oganic supplies from Planet Natural, Worm's Way (especially if I need grow bags), GH Organics or Peaceful Valley Farm Supply.

I try to time my order so that the Semaspore they send me will arrive about the time the hoppers start hatching out. However, sometimes that 'just in time' ordering doesn't work if something is back-ordered for two months. The EcoBran barely arrived in time and I was getting a little worried it wouldn't arrive until July which would be too late to save my beans from the hoppers. The Semaspore arrived maybe 7-10 days after I ordered it, which I think was in late March or early April, so that was perfect. I had about 2 months of shelf life before its expiration date and I knew I'd use it all before then, and I did. It did make a noticeable dent in the hopper population. Those little ones just completely disappeared. However, new ones appeared periodically, so I'd put out more of it. I was only using it in our gardens and not on the grassy pasture type acreage.

I don't think Semaspore is very effective at high temperatures because the heat may negatively impact the Nosema locuste. For me, it only seems to work in March-May. If I had small hoppers now (or for that matter, large ones), I'd skip the Semaspore for this year and go straight for the EcoBran.

The terrible thing that grasshoppers at our place in southcentral Oklahoma this year is that full-sized, adult migratory ones showed up one day in March. Adults! In March! I was so upset I was practically hyperventilating. There were tons of large wildfires in Texas near us at that time, and the Texas wildfires extended way, way down into south Texas where I think the grasshoppers might have overwintered. My theory is that as the wildfires burned first thousands and then hundreds of thousands of acres, the hoppers fled and moved north until they eventually arrived here and started eating what little we had that was green in March. Luckily, my chickens ate a lot of them and I think some recurring late frosts may have gotten some of them, but any time you have active, adult grasshoppers in our climate in March, that's a bad omen.

If I had hoppers on Bhut Jolokia and Habanero peppers, I'd cover the plants with floating row cover material pegged down to the ground with U-shaped landscape pins. As long as it takes both of them to mature peppers, if the plants are being eaten by the hoppers, your harvest could come really, really late.

I am not certified organic, but try to garden as organically as possible and absolutely despise the smell of Sevin, but I'm using the EcoBran anyway. At least it is in a formulation that won't hurt my beneficial insects. Not only do I want food that is raised with as few chemical imputs as possible, I don't want to poison the air, soil and water where we live. We have abundant wildlife and tons of pets and I want to keep it that way. With most pests in my garden, there are beneficial insects that will eat the pests. However, only the birds (and an occasional silly dog or cat) eat the hoppers. We have oodles of birds and they are always in the garden hunting, but the hoppers arrive in swarms and it seems like we arrive at a certain point, usually around the first or second week in July, where the birds are sick of them and seem to stop eating them. I can't say I blame them either.

I've linked the Grasshopper page from the website of GH Organics. It has some useful info and possible remedies on it too.

Good luck with the war on the hoppers.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: GH Organics: Grasshopper Page

I'm hoping the EcoBran works. Below is an updated photo of some of the damage to the front flower bed. Now they are starting in the veggie garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: Grasshopper damage

This thread is a year old but I wanted to add my experiences in case anyone finds it in a search.

I've had good luck killing grasshoppers with Spinosad spray. You'll have to spray all the favored plants heavily on both sides of the leaves. The grasshoppers ingest it when they eat more of the plant. The downside is that after ingestion it takes a week or so to work on a mature grasshopper so it isn't a fast control and your plants will still get chewed some. But the hoppers that do it will die. Of course you'll get others moving into your yard so it isn't a perfect solution. But used consistently it certainly cuts down on the local population. I plan to start earlier next year and hopefully I can get the population thinned down before they reach such a hungry and destructive size.

You'll need to reapply after a rain or if you get water on the leaves when irrigating. Again, it isn't a perfect solution but it is organic and for me that was an important plus.

Verdant

Dawn wrote: "We have grasshoppers with red legs. Grasshoppers with yellow bodies and green legs. Grasshoppers with green bodies and yellow legs. Grasshoppers with 'wings' that are orange. (They look like butterflies when they fly.) "

Don't forget the ones which bite! I didn't know such a thing existed, till I came to Oklahoma. Fortunately, they only bite if one grabs hold of them to put them on a fish hook.

Yesterday I put two meal of fish in the freezer, using our abundant crickets and grasshoppers as bait. Been itching to get down to our pond and fish ;)

George
Tahlequah, OK

George, I don't get bitten by hoppers, but then I am not trying to put them on hooks.

You ought to have enough hoppers and crickets there to catch a lot of fish. I don't know how you find the time to go fishing though.

We have lots of hoppers, but I don't think they are nearly as bad as they were in the early 2000s or late 1990s when they even ate the bark on fruit trees and ate the cotton rag rugs on the wraparound porch and the fiberglass window screens. In those years they were ranging/migrating in huge hordes. They're worse in the parts of our county that have had the least rain, which is roughly the northern half of the county. It is early yet and their population doesn't usually peak here until late July or early August.

One reason I don't think they're as bad here is that our year-to-date rainfall is right at our average annual rainfall through this point in time, whereas yours is way below average. The difference in the hopper population with below average rainfall and drought is astonishing compared to what it is like in average rainfall. Of course, if this week's rain misses us and we continue to dry up, my hopper population could get as large as yours. It only takes us 3 weeks to go from a typical hopper summer to a really bad one.

Dawn

Our neighbor said at church today that he turned his chickens out and the grasshopper count and amount of feed he was feeding went down. I did not say anything but I bet his chicken count goes down also it they stay out long.
Grasshoppers are not the only hungry critters out there.

My guineas are my best grasshopper control, but as mentioned by several others - if I leave them out too long the coyotes get the guineas - even in broad daylight. We do seem to have a lot more grasshoppers just in the last couple of weeks - all colors all sizes.

I am having some of the same trouble as George. I had two Doctor appointments in Ft. Smith today. On the way out I checked the garden (not that there is much in the garden) and found two swarms of Striped Blister Beetles. When I got back the were scattered and moving toward the flower beds and the south garden. I have not let them scatter in the past, I expect to be dragging out the big guns soon.

Larry

You may have to magnify the picture to see the bugs, but there is more than enough there, and they are in other areas.

Sorry, I posted this picture on the wrong thread. It should have gone on the Assassin bug theard, that is where George posted his remark on the Blister beetles. I will try to pay more attentain to what I am doing.

Larry

No problem Larry. Blister beetles seem to belong with grasshoppers. That's an ugly horde, for sure!

George

Blister bugs eat grasshopper eggs, so this is the perfect place for them. That's why I seldom kill them. I'd rather have the blister beetles this year devouring the grasshopper eggs so there won't be so many grasshoppers next year. However, if I catch a blister beetle in the act of eating a tomato plant while I'm picking tomatoes, I ruthlessly snip it in half with my garden scissors.

I've never had them in huge numbers like y'all are seeing them though.

I dont really know where to post this, but I wanted to bring an update on my blister beetles.

I now check my plants at least 2 times a day. I noticed yesterday that the blister beetles had moved in on my cucumber plant, they were not there the night before. I sprayed the plant up just past the blister beetles and the grass around the plant. This morning I noticed them on my watermelons. I sprayed the plants and mulch around them.

Yeaterday I noticed the beetles on my mulch/compost pile. I did not want to spray the pile and thought that the bugs were going into the pile to get the produce waste that I had buried in the pile. To check this theory I placed some produce waste on top of the pile to se if it would attract bugs, it seemed to arrtact bugs.

I dont know how to make a link to the pictures pertaining to the bugs so I will just post a picture and if anyone wants to see more they can click on the picture and go into my album. If anybody can tell me how to make a link like Seedmama did I will be glad to do so in the future rather than tying up so much time and space.

I hope to control the beetles by spot spraying where they are doing damage.

Larry

Larry, You have more blister beetles there in one photo than I'll see on our entire 14 acres in a year. I think likely is the drought you've been having.

What are you spraying them with, and do you think it is working?

Dawn

Dawn, I am spraying them with Ortho Maxx. I dont like using the stuff, but those bugs can strip plants in a day or two. I wish I could take a moving picture so you could really see what it is like. Its almost like army ants moving across the lawn, eating every thing in their path.

I was invaded year before last with black blister beetles, last year with the striped, and then again this year with the striped. The black ones were not near as much trouble as these. I bought the Ortho Maxx to kill the black blister beetles year before last that got on large Clematis vine. They almost had it stripped the vine before we noticed them. The spray works, The ground was black under the clematis vine. I have now used the Ortho 3 times on certain garden plants and it killed at least some of the bugs. The dead brown striped bugs are hard to see in the mulch. They did not return to a plant that I had sprayed. I have been thinking that I may spray a strip around the south garden to see if that may keep them out. I have quite a number of black blister beetles in the south garden but have not noticed the striped ones. I also have a lot of grasshoppers in the south garden. It has been so hot and dry for so long that I think the insects are moving in and eating anything they can find.

Larry

Larry I have had them off and on just as thick as yours. I used Sevin and they were gone, but they can come and go. That is dangerous because if you don't check your garden your plants could be gone before you have a chance to save them. Yesterday I was mowing the long grass where I have been watering. Mostly I don't have any grass. I noticed blister beetles were all over the grass. Jay had mentioned garlic spray so I crushed some garlic and made up a spray. By the time I got it made and in my sprayer, they were gone. I saw some of them fly away when I made a few passes with the mower. I hadn't thought about them flying away because they seem to run everywhere on the ground like ants every which way. So I had my garlic spray and no bugs. Since the sunflowers are covered in lace bugs, I used my spray on them. Tonight the sunflowers had no bugs but I got hungry smelling the area and am making garlic bread. Sorry to be silly because I know you have a serious problem. With everything drying up and no rain in sight, it is good to laugh about something.

Larry, I usually have the black ones. When the striped ones would show up, they'd strip the Sweet Autumn Clematis naked and then leave. The black ones would stick around and eat tomato plants. After they had striped the Sweet Autumn Clematis naked during the drought of 2008, it died and didn't come back and we didn't replace it. We haven't had many striped blister beetles since then.

I think you're right about the insects invading heavily in search of food. That's exactly what happens here. It will seem like they are too bad around us for a long time, but not here, and then all of a sudden they reach us too and they're everywhere. That's one reason I don't think it pays to water heavily. If your garden or lawn or landscape beds are gorgeous and green when everything else around you is brown and dormant, guess where the insects will go? It drives me up the wall. I am seeing much more damage in the garden from grasshoppers the last week than I did prior to that. They're really eating the leaves of the okra and southern peas, and I need to do something about it quick.

To think...when we first moved here, I was only concerned that cucumber beetles and tomato hornworms might be a problem. I had no idea many how problem pest type insects would show up in our garden every summer.

Helen, Spraying garlic spray makes me hungry for anything Italian too, and it does a pretty good job of repelling all kinds of insects. I think it may repel mosquitoes because we just don't have them here near the garden or house very often at all.

Dawn

Helen, thanks for the laugh and the tip about the garlic spray. The garlic spray may be a pretty good bet, between the grasshoppers and the blister beetles my north garden is almost stripped except for my Evergreen bunching onions.

I did not know the beetles could fly, they just seemed to vanish.

Larry

Eco Bran is available at Ranch Wholesale Range & Pasture Supply in Longmont, CO. I just received 2 lbs of Eco Bran. It comes with it's own applicator and is easy to use. I applied some to the areas where grasshoppers are hopping and am hoping for good results. Be advised that the product has to be shipped by UPS; and so shipping is costly.