I also have a good crop of grasshoppers. I expect that the pastures around me may give them more to eat because their numbers seem to increase when the hay is mowed, and they started mowing yesterday. I have very little left in the garden for them to eat, but they are not very picky.

This was the worst grasshopper year we ever had. Fortunately, it rained enough to keep the pastures green all summer so they had something to eat besides our garden. They did enough damage in there, but not as much as the deer.

Auther,

A lot of us have the exact sort of grasshopper problems you described, and some years they drive me up the wall.

In the early 2000s we had a very bad year where they even ate the peaches hanging on the trees, all the foliage, and even the bark off the trees, and they didn't even do that until they had pretty much destroyed the veggie gardens and ornamental flowers in the shrub beds. In that year, after they'd eaten all the plant material they could find, they began eating the cotton rag rugs on the porch, the cotton pillows on the porch swing and the fiberglass window screens.

We have chickens and had guineas for about 10 years, and even they get tired of grasshoppers in a bad grasshopper year and just stop eating them, as do the wild birds.

I watch carefully in spring to see when the hoppers begin emerging and to see how many are emerging. If they are emerging early and there's lots of them, I use Semaspore to try to knock back their population. It is an organic bait that contains a disease microorganism (Nosema locuste) that only kills them effectively when they are in the younger, smaller instars (roughly 1/4-1/2" in length) but I figure every little hopper it kills is one less hopper that will eat my plants and reproduce more hoppers later in the season. It also only really works well in cooler temperatures, so I tend to use it in the April-May time frame, and sometimes a little bit into June if the weather is not yet incredibly hot. This year I bought and used a 5-lb. bag and it was fairly effective at the time. We still had hoppers, but not as many as we otherwise would have had.

There have been years I felt like the Semaspore didn't work because we still had so many grasshoppers, but then a friend or neighbor would ask me why we didn't have any grasshoppers here even though everyone else did. I'd protest that we had tons of grasshoppers, and then that person would tell me that I needed to pay attention when we drive up the road and watch and see how many grasshoppers fly up out of the bar ditches as a car passes by and to compare how many we have fly up out of our bar ditch compared to everyone else's. When I did that, it was obvious we had far less grasshoppers than everyone else, so even though it seemed to me like the grasshopper bait failed to work, I learned that it had indeed kept our numbers smaller.
Just this summer, our former daughter-in-law came to visit and commented on how many grasshoppers we had in our neighborhood this year, and seemed surprised how good our veggie garden and flowers looked despite the large grasshopper population. She commented that her county, which lies adjacent to ours, didn't have the huge population of grasshoppers she was seeing here.

I garden mostly organically and never have sprayed a broad-spectrum chemical pesticide in my garden before, and this year I finally broke down and did it in an effort to save my garden from the grasshoppers. I hated doing it. I sprayed one time and it did knock out the grasshoppers for maybe a week or two, so it was a success in that sense, but I am sure it killed many beneficial insects as well. I don't think I'll ever spray a broad-spectrum synthetic pesticide again because it goes against the way I like to garden---with a garden full of beneficial insects that keep the pest insects somewhat under control. I just don't think it made enough difference in the grasshopper population to make it worth doing. More grasshoppers just flew into the garden from the surrounding fields, so after 3 or 4 weeks, you couldn't even tell I'd sprayed. However, it did save a lot of plants from being eaten down to the ground or at least stripped of all their foliage so spraying when I did likely saved the garden from total annihilation by the grasshoppers.

There is a non-organic grasshopper bait-type pesticide called EcoBran that I have used in a limited amount and it helps if you apply it often enough. It is a wheat bran infused with 2% Sevin. If the grasshoppers eat it and ingest the Sevin, it likely kills them. I can see fewer hoppers in the garden a few days after I put out EcoBran, but I still would rather not use any synthetic pesticides at all. I do like that it gives me a way to use Sevin without harming beneficial insects. My favorite way to use it is to scatter it in a broad band around the outside perimeter of the garden, hoping the hoppers will find it and eat it before they ever get to the garden.

This year the wild birds were in the garden a lot more than usual and they were eating the grasshoppers, but you know how it is....more grasshoppers just fly in from elsewhere.

This probably was not our worst grasshopper year ever, but it was really bad. I'd guess it was our second or third worst ever. While the grasshoppers were bad all summer and still are far too plentiful even now as we approach the end of September, they were the worst in August. We had received decent rainfall in June and July so the fields stayed green. With considerably less green in August, they flew in and took over the garden areas.

Because grasshopper populations slowly cycle up and down over a period of years, whenever we have a peak year, I console myself with the knowledge that if this was the peak year, then their population will slowly fall for the next few years before it begins to cycle back upward again. Sometimes, though, I've thought we were having a peak year, only to have even more of them the next year, making it a peak year. They were bad here last year, but significantly worse this year, so maybe this is the peak year in our county and maybe next year they will not be so bad.

Almost every winter, I remember to watch for the APHIS Grasshopper Rangeland forecast so I can see what sort of grasshopper population they are projecting for my part of the state. The forecase is based on data reported from autumn surveys. I plan accordingly, buying more Semaspore if the forecast is high and less or none if it is low. This year, I forgot to check it until I noticed large numbers of newly hatched grasshoppers very early in the year. When I checked the APHIS forecast for 2014, I immediately ordered 5 lbs. of Semaspore, whereas most years I order 1 pound. Had I know what the grasshopper population would be like this year, maybe I would have ordered 50 lbs instead.

I can guarantee you that I'll be watching for the 2015 APHIS Rangeland grasshopper forecast so I can prepare accordingly. And, for what it is worth, when I look at the forecast map, which I've linked below, I think we had even higher numbers of grasshoppers than what they forecasted for our specific part of the state. It will be interesting in January 2015 to see what the forecast looks like. It is likely one reason the hoppers have been so bad this year is because, at least in our county, we have been in drought for pretty much every week this year. We might have made it out of drought for a week or two or even three back in the winter, but the spring drought was just the sort of weather the hoppers like, so I knew we were in trouble long before the population got insanely high because the winter and spring rains failed to show up.

We are in a rural area so always have lots of grasshoppers, but in a bad year their population is so ridiculously high that it is almost unbelievable. Our city-dwelling friends and family cannot even believe their eyes when they see how many grasshoppers we have in mid- to late-summer in a bad grasshopper year because they never have them in their city neighborhoods in numbers that high.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: The 2014 APHIS Grasshopper Rangeland Forecast

Auther, that sounds so frustrating! I can understand you mechanically doing something against them. I'm glad you were sharp enough to get the early garden in and have something from it. I cannot imagine that many grasshoppers. I noticed some in mine. I'm sure there will be more next year.

bon

Where do you get this Semaspore? I got something called Spectrocide, I think?, It's supposed to be for fleas & ticks in the yard, at Wal-Mart and it will thin the grasshoppers out but for every one you kill it seems 20 more takes their place. I don't like putting something that will kill the beneficial insects but it is hard to watch the grasshoppers take everything. One thing though with all the dead grasshoppers I noticed that the lizards got as fat as little pigs eating acorns. I had a garden full of lizards this year and they didn't let a grasshopper lay for very long.

I never have seen Semaspore in Oklahoma. I usually either buy it at one of the nurseries or garden centers in the D-FW metroplex area (it is closer to us than OKC, so when we go shopping, that's where we go) or I order it online. Generally, I just order it at Amazon.com because I can see on their website if it is in stock and ready to ship. With some of the online organic garden supply retailers that carry a wide range of organic products, I've ordered it and had it not even arrive until the weather is too hot here for it to be useful. Apparently they stock and sell it based on the temperatures where they are based and not on the temperatures in the buyers' area, so that by the time they finally ship it, we're way too hot. Buying from Amazon, I usually get it within a week of ordering it, and sometimes only 3 or 4 days after I order it.

I do know that some people in central and northeastern OK have found Semaspore at either nurseries or farm supply stores some years in OK in the spring, but I don't shop in that part of the state so I cannot tell you who is likely to carry it there.

One thing to remember about Semaspore (or any of the other brands that contain Nosema locuste as their active ingredient) is that the Nosema locuste is a living microorganism, so it has a very limited shelf life. The product only remains viable for a very limited period, and each container has an expiration date stamped on it. After I open the container, I keep it in the extra refrigerator in the garage in order to keep it viable for as long as possible. This year, when my order arrived in April, it had an expiration date of June 2014, which was fine with me because I needed to use it up before the weather got too hot anyhow. I always check that expiration date when buying it in the store because I have found it on store shelves a year past the expiration date (and I didn't buy that old stuff either).

The other product, EcoBran, is available via Planet Natural and I'll link it below. It is a great product and does quickly reduce the grasshopper population. However, since I am in a rural area surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres of grassland, no matter how many grasshoppers the EcoBran kills, hundreds and hundreds more migrate in from the rangeland all summer long, so it always feels like I am fighting a losing battle in a bad grasshopper year.

Just this week, I found some fairly young grasshoppers (about an inch long) in the back veggie garden. The older, larger ones are mating, laying eggs and dying, but there's still a whole new bunch of young ones that have hatched out recently. The onslaught of grasshoppers just won't stop this year.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: EcoBran Grasshopper Bait

Yes, i am seeing a bunch of smaller hoppers and a healthy amount of adults mating. This is the best time to take the garden scissors to them, kill two with one cut. I also smashed a few svb moths today, its almost October!

Thank you for the information.
Around here there 3-4 different settings of hoppers from 1/2 in. up to the full grown size. I guess some didn't hatch until late. The cooler weather probably doesn't help the but it slows down the grasshoppers. It doesn't matter how cold it gets during the winter it doesn't hurt the grasshopper or squash bug population.

I have to correct myself about what I bought at Wal-Mart it was Eliminator Ant insecticide, It didn't kill all the grasshoppers but it did kill some of them. More so the smaller ones but it did kill some of the larger ones. It is a granular. It does work fairly well on Red Ants.

Ms Dawn,
I ordered some semaspore last year (too late) and it was a liquid. I didn't know what to do with it.
Out of fear I would hurt my soldier bugs (they stare at me - it's kinda creepy) I didn't use the stuff.
Is it normally a powder? Do I just sprinkle it on the ground?
Or on the plants?
Regarding the ecobran, where is the best place to put the bait that chickens and birds don't get it?
I am getting prepared for the grasshopper war next year...
I'm studying Rambo, too.......

Kim,

I've only used a granular Semaspore that is a bait. I put on gloves and scatter it on top of the grasshoppers favorite plants, which in April tends to be catnip, lemon basil, catmint and lambs quarters (the lambsquarters pop up outside the garden and I leave them there for a while to attract hoppers away from the garden). I've never heard of a version of Semaspore that is liquid, so I'm willing to bet that maybe you're thinking of Spinosad? Spinosad does come in a liquid version as well as a granular version.

With Ecobran, I scatter it directly on top of whatever plants the grasshoppers are eating so they will eat it instead. My chickens are fenced out of the garden, so I don't have to worry about them eating it. I don't use it often, and when I do, I've never seen the wild birds eat it. There are so many other tasty things (bugs and stuff, cracked corn, hen scratch, and sunflower seeds) to eat here that the wild birds show 0% interest in the Ecobran.

The grasshopper wars likely will be bad next year. I've never had a heavy infestation in one year followed by a light infestation in the very next year. Instead, it cycles down slowly, so that 3 or 4 years after a very bad year, we'll have a very good year with relatively few grasshoppers (so few that you really don't see much damage from them). Sometimes we get 2 or 3 fairly good years in a row as their populatioh slowly cycles back upward. When I was a kid, I was told by various farmer and gardener type persons that the grasshoppers run on a 7-year cycle, but as an adult I've never seen exactly that. Sometimes a peak bad year occurs about 5 years after the last really bad year, and sometimes it is about 3 years after the last really bad year. I've never had the luxury of having 7 years in between peak populations.

I'm going to link Planet Natural's Semaspore page because it has tons of valuable information about how Semaspore works, etc. Their pest pages are some of the best info you'll find on the various pests and the organic products that target those pests.

Oh, and I should add that one of the best things about the use of products containing Nosema locuste is that it is the gift that just keeps giving. As grasshoppers who have ingested the Nosema locuste die, they often are cannibalized by other grasshoppers, who then contract the Nosema locuste. Those cannibals are then cannibalized by more grasshoppers and so it goes, ad infinitum. Often, I will feel like the Semaspore didn't help as much in spring or early summer as I was hoping/expecting it would, but that is because I am impatient and want instant results. Often, I will find that it is the following year that I see the big difference---because the disease microorganisms were doing their job all year long, persisting and spreading and killing grasshoppers throughout the season. I'll notice a marked lack of hatching hoppers at our place in spring even though they are hatching out all around us, and that will be my light-bulb moment when I realize that the Semapore used in the previous year did indeed do its job. So, I don't necessary use Semaspore every year. Sometimes, between its effect on the hoppers plus us reaching the natural low point in their population cycle, I actually can go 3 or 4 years without using it at all.

Dawn

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

We also had tons of grasshoppers here in PA. Among other things, they love my chard (grrr). But here's the problem - we can't buy Nolo Bait here -- OR in any of the surrounding states. Wonder what is up with that?

The spray Semaspore that luvabasil bought you can supposedly buy on Amazon - it's like Neem, a soap format. If you type Semaspore i the search box, it's the first thing that comes up. However, it doesn't show in the ingredients at all. What are we looking for?

I told a friend I'm going to borrow her chickens next spring. I mean, if we can't buy the Nolo bait, what are we supposed to do about these crop killers? Can't buy it on eBay, either. :/ There is a corn field behind my house - but they don't seem to be having a problem with the things. Just ME.