c:
Farming, Saturday, May 17,1950
Could 1980 be the year
of the grasshopper?
TO STOP A GRASSHOP
PER:
SOMEWHERE IN THE
WEST The air is still and
cool at dawn. Newly grown
grasses and weeds in multi
shades of green cover a vast,
silent range.
The soil is uniformally
moist and the temperature
perfect: hordes of newly
hatched grasshoppers
called nymphs sluggishly
emerge from their buried
egg capsules. Already
hungry, they stretch then
legs and climb the nearest
blade of grass to begin
feeding.
This scene mil be repeated
countless times across
hundreds of millions of acres
of western rangeland this
Spring and Summer.
Grasshoppers compete
with humans for food, fiber
and forage. During some
years, when grasshopper
populations are low and
grass is plentiful, humans
and grasshoppers coexist
peacefully.
“Grasshopper populations
tend to be cyclic,” said L.C.
Keenan, newly selected staff
officer for the U.S. Depart
ment of Agriculture’s
Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service. “Grass
hoppers are usually present
in economically damaging
numbers in relatively small
localized outbreaks
somewhere in the west every
year.”
USDA defines
economically damaging as 8
or more grasshoppers per
square yard that’s 38,720
per acre.
One female can lay up to
200 eggs only two need to
hatch and survive to become
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adults for the population to
remain the same as the year
before. One grasshopper per
square yard over an entire
acre 4,840 grasshoppers
together will eat 12 pounds of
dry grass a year.
Every few years or so,”
Keenan said, “conditions are
perfect for a widespread
outbreak Ilka the one in 1979.
We had them during the dust
bowl years of the 1930’s and
agam m the late 1950’s
Populations are usually high
for 3 to 5 years the middle
years are the worst then
populations decline
drastically. The decline is
usually due to natural
controls, principally un
faorable weather, but also
due to predators, parasites
and diseases.”
If the weather is dry and
warm, more grasshoppers
hatch. Cool, wet weather
deters the hatch. The ideal
conditions for a grasshopper
outbreak are a cool, moist
early Spring, followed by a
hot Summer and a late Fall,
Keenan said.
After drought and
grasshoppers hit the great
plains in the early 1930’5,
Congress granted funds for
organized grasshopper
control on both range and
cropland. The insecticides
used then were mostly ar
senical compounds. Aerial
application began generally
in the late 1940’s using
chlorinated hydrocarbons
like aldnn and dialdnn.
In 1952, a federal-state
task force recommended the
federal government drop its
cropland treatments
because newly developed
chemicals and improved
application equipment made
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it possible for growers to
control cropland
grasshoppers on their own.
Cooperative grasshopper
control was developed in the
lOdf)’*- TTnfJpr nratrrorn
Keenan said, the lancher oi
farmer pays a third of the
cost, the federal government
pays another third and the
states that participate pay
the final third. If a state does
not participate, the rancher
or farmer must pay two
thirds
“We expect a major
outbreak again this year in
17 western states,” Keenan
said “And we estimate the
total program costs per acre
tp be $1.70 that’s about 57
cents per acre from each
rancher.”
The tuning in applying
insecticide is critical,
Keenan said Carbaryl and
malathion are most effective
when the grasshoppers are
immature. Toxicity for
carbaryl is 10 to 20 days and
2 to 5 days for malathion.
Neither is harmful to
animals or humans when
properly applied, but bee
hives must be removed from
areas that will be sprayed.
During the 1979 outbreak, 7
million acres were treated at
a cost of $5.6 million to the
federal government During
the outbreak, some areas
recorded 60,100 and even 200
grasshoppers per square
yard.
We’d like to control
grasshoppers without
chemicals,” Keenan said
“However, we find there’s a
gap between the public’s
concept of where they think
we are in developing
biological controls and
where we really are. ”
One pathogen USDA is
currently studying is
Nosema locustas, which is
Latin for “grasshopper
sickness.”
“Nosema is a grasshopper
disease, “Keenan said, “that
occurs naturally in 2 to 3
percent of all grasshoppers
The disease affects different
species differently. As far as
we know, Nosema only af
fects grasshoppers. When
conditions are right, Nosema
controls the pests naturally.
We’re trying to develop the
technique to artificially rear
Nosema, then put it in a bait.
“Actually, we’re in the
trial and error stage with
Nosema,” Keenen said.
“Nosema is not yet in
commercial production. The
only Nosema we have is that
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produced by USDA scien
tists. Even if a firm began
commercial production
tomorrow; they could
produce only enough to treat
100,000 out of several million
acres this year.
“And Nosema is very
fragile,” Keenan said. “In
its present form it’s not
something you’re going to be
able to buy and store from
year to year or season to
season. It has to be produced
and used almost im
mediately. And it’s ex
pensive to produce.”
“Nosema is an exciting
approach to grasshopper
control and it may have
possibilities,” Keenan said.
“But it has a long way to go
before it can be produced
commercially and used
routinely for control ”
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Keenan said scientists are
also working on En
tomophthora grylli a
fungal disease oft:
grasshoppers. “This is a 10-'
year program,” Keenan
said. “It’s a long way down
the road.”
Keenan added this year
USDA will compare Nosema
with malathion on a test plot
in Arizona. “We’ll run the
test on a 40,000-acre plot
notoriously infested with
grasshoppers. This will help
us evaluate how effective
Nosema is.”
Research for more ef
fective and ecologically
acceptable alternatives for
controlling grasshoppers
will continue, Keenan said.
“For now, we’ve got to
manage grasshoppers with
what we’ve got.”
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