Any tips for getting rid of grasshoppers?

[gunsmokex]

Grrr, I have a grasshopper infestation in my corn There are 100's of them all over the place chewing away at all of my beautiful corn. Any thing I can do to get rid of them?

[rainbowgardener]

This is a good article on grasshopper control:

http://www.ghorganics.com/page12.html

Suggestions include garlic oil spray, Neem oil spray, planting cilantro and calendula in with your corn as repellants.

Praying mantises actually eat them and you can order praying mantis egg cases.

[gunsmokex]

Thank you! I'm going to head over Lowe's to see if I can find some neem oil today. We'll see if that does the trick, I might do that and spray some garlic and pepper oil spray as well. I'm hoping the neem oil helps out my corn rust a little too, it sounds like good stuff.

If the circadas invade I don't know that I'll do lol, but they are already buzzing.

[gunsmokex]

I just have killed them in the morning. They camouflage but i still see them. I cut its head with scissor kinda brutal, to let them know that my garden is not their paradise and not a safe place for them to live in. They abandoned my garden.

Lol, very cool. I wish I could do that but I have 100's of them in all 4 or 5 stages. I be out there for hours and still wouldn't put a dent in their population. Grasshopper have always been a problem here in South Dakota they love the prarie grass and thrive here. Next year I'll try cilantro or something but I think I'd have to grow a lot of it. I'm hoping the neem and garlic/pepper spray will work but all in all they haven't done too much damage yet.

[Artemesia]

I used to live and garden in South Dakota, so I know exactly what you are going through. I found that tilling several times in the fall helps since it disturbs their larva. It especially helps to have poultry come in behind your tilling to eat the larva. Tilling again in the spring with poultry following will help to remove any remaning pupa. Planting oats and peas also helps since most of them do not like oats and peas as much.

[imafan26]

I'm lucky, I only found one grasshopper in one of my three plots, but I also found a praying mantis egg case on the fig tree, so they are on the job. The one good thing about having birds raid the garden so frequently, they love grasshoppers.

[rainbowgardener]

Encouraging birds in the garden is helpful against a lot of pests. Be sure you have a bird bath, bird houses, bird feeders (even seed eaters eat insects part of the time).

[gunsmokex]

I used to live and garden in South Dakota, so I know exactly what you are going through. I found that tilling several times in the fall helps since it disturbs their larva. It especially helps to have poultry come in behind your tilling to eat the larva. Tilling again in the spring with poultry following will help to remove any remaning pupa. Planting oats and peas also helps since most of them do not like oats and peas as much.

Yes I don't know if many on here quite truly understand the amount of grasshoppers I'm dealing with. I don't really have any chickens on my farm as my dogs would most definitely eventually have them for lunch lol. Good advice though I'll definitely till the hell out of it this fall and the spring anything to put a dent in them. On the bright side they don't seem to be hurting the corn all that much, although there literally still are are hundreds of them so I'm sure they are doing more damage than I think.

I'm lucky, I only found one grasshopper in one of my three plots, but I also found a praying mantis egg case on the fig tree, so they are on the job. The one good thing about having birds raid the garden so frequently, they love grasshoppers.

I'd love to have preying mantis's but I'm sure that they would never survive our winters, if they somehow did that'd be a bonus.

Encouraging birds in the garden is helpful against a lot of pests. Be sure you have a bird bath, bird houses, bird feeders (even seed eaters eat insects part of the time).

Oh yes I do have a LOT of birds around the farm, I'm not sure if barn swallows eat grasshoppers or not but one day I had a Stephen King novel amount of barn swallows invading my farm lol. (here is my other post on that viewtopic.php?f=39&t=54146

But yes I have running pasture stream in the front yard and acres of shelterbelt trees including hollow dead trees for them to nest in. So I'm pretty bird friendly, not to mention my dogs keep the squirrels away. I actually set aside about 4-5 acreas of streambottom land that used to be pasture specifically for wildlife, its full of native grasses and you'd be amazed at the amount of growth I've had in the 8 or so yrs since I've done this. The birds love it and this year somehow I've got stands of wild sunflowers that are about 8-10' tall so I'm sure the birds are loving those.

I'm not too much on using bird feeders becasue some of the birdseeds have seed that I don't really want spreading about my property. Thistle seed stuff like that, I'd rather let the birds take care of themselves they've done pretty well without me so far and they keep coming back.

I might however make a wren house or something for the garden specifically for wren because I heard they eat cabbage loopers and that been a big problem for me this year. Or is there any one species of bird that loves grasshoppers? I'm guessing they all do, I mean if I was a bird I'd probably even eat a grasshopper I'm sure they are tasty j/k lol.

Well either way though the corn isn't looking too bad, not great but not bad either. Its more my own fault for planting the rows too close together.

[applestar]

http://sdda.sd.gov/farming-ranching-agr ... anagement/

I tried skimming the 2012 environmental assessment. Wow, that's a lot to digest, and there are lots of ways of presenting what was written in the report. (...which of course made me think of a certain movie...)

The part that struck me the most was where it said (inferred by me and paraphrased in my own words) "If we do nothing, people would try to do this on their own without the kinds of risk assessments we are doing and potentially cause more damage" and the part that said (inferred by me and paraphrased in y own words) "even if we do something people may try to do something more especially because those are areas that we wanted to protect from environmental harm and were not treated."

[rainbowgardener]

Praying mantis do survive S.Dak winters - but it may not be the same species I have. I was looking it up and found that the mantids in southern canada, New Hampshire, Vermont are an introduced European species.


"Thistle" seed in bird seed has nothing to do with thistles and will not sprout in your garden. It is Nyjer, the seed of the African yellow daisy. I have had sunflowers and broom corn sprout from my birdseed.

I think it is terrific that you have set aside some wildlife habitat area!

[gunsmokex]

http://sdda.sd.gov/farming-ranching-agribusiness/grasshopper-management/

I tried skimming the 2012 environmental assessment. Wow, that's a lot to digest, and there are lots of ways of presenting what was written in the report. (...which of course made me think of a certain movie...)

The part that struck me the most was where it said (inferred by me and paraphrased in my own words) "If we do nothing, people would try to do this on their own without the kinds of risk assessments we are doing and potentially cause more damage" and the part that said (inferred by me and paraphrased in y own words) "even if we do something people may try to do something more especially because those are areas that we wanted to protect from environmental harm and were not treated."

Hmm very interesting stuff, I'll have to research this more tonight at work when I'm bored but its looking like they only did it for western SD its more of an issue out there though being how bad the drought was last year. That and most of the land out there is grassland for cattle. I know we'll never see the dirty 30's again but I remember my grandfather telling me stories of the grasshoppers coming in swarms and literally eating everything. (farmers now no-till or minimum till back then everything was plowed under in the fall a bad practice for conservation, yet I still see farmers doing this in areas, mostly in Iowa where EVERYTHING is planted regardless of erosion but I won't get into that now, lets just say that SD actually requires filter strips and waterways to manage erosion IA doesn't, I'll post photos sometime).

Praying mantis do survive S.Dak winters - but it may not be the same species I have. I was looking it up and found that the mantids in southern canada, New Hampshire, Vermont are an introduced European species.


"Thistle" seed in bird seed has nothing to do with thistles and will not sprout in your garden. It is Nyjer, the seed of the African yellow daisy. I have had sunflowers and broom corn sprout from my birdseed.

I think it is terrific that you have set aside some wildlife habitat area!

Hmm I'll have to do a little more research on this as I don't think I've ever seen a praying mantis in my lifetime here maybe next year I'll order the proper species. I'll definitely be looking though for them around here.

I guess as for birdseed to each their own. If I didn't plant it its a weed especially in my garden that and I haven't had any birds attack my tomatoes yet. That and I'd to leave the stream bottom with native plants and the garden is not far from the stream.

[gunsmokex]

Thanks Rainbow. I'll get some pics up of the conservation area I started though, I see there is a picture section now. I feel like I'm doing my part to help out the environment and wildlife.

[Artemesia]

Of course you could spread soft organic matter over the garden (grass clippings, leaves, etc.), spray it heavily with honey water, then till it in. This will kick the bacterial levels up and definitely kill off most of those larva.

[celticfarm]

We had an infestation on our flower farm this year. Came out one morning and my seedlings were wiped out I tried several methods and finally got them under control. I wrote a quick blog post about the techniques here is anyone is interested:

http://www.thecelticfarm.com/get-rid-of-grasshoppers/

[ButterflyLady29]

I've read about the huge grasshopper plagues that covered parts of the west in the past. People who had chickens said the birds just couldn't keep up with the sheer numbers of hoppers. There are some insecticides on the market that supposedly do a pretty good job of hopper control. Spinosad is one but it's very toxic to other insects and is effective for 30 or so days. Semaspore and Nolo are supposedly safe around other insects but it needs to be applied when hoppers are young.

[rainbowgardener]

Any leaf chewing insects should be vulnerable to Neem oil....

[imafan26]

When the grass hoppers invade there isn't much to stop them unless you have a lot of predators around. Mostly they like grass and that is the best place to find and catch them. If they don't have grass to munch on, your crops are the alternative. Most organic controls will not work well on hard bodied insects. Unless you have attract some insect eating birds and spiders there is nothing much to do but hope for the best. If you can put row covers on before they get to the plants it may help.

[rainbowgardener]

Most organic controls will not work well on hard bodied insects.

That is true for anything that would be working on the outside. So grasshoppers are not vulnerable to diatomaceous earth (not only because they are hard bodied, but because they jump rather than crawl). They are not vulnerable to garlic-pepper sprays, except possibly for repellant qualities.

But Neem oil works when it is ingested as they eat the leaves it was sprayed on. So hard bodied doesn't matter.

I found this:

How Neem Oil Controls Grasshoppers
After you spray plant leaves with neem-based insecticide, grasshoppers eat the neem as they feed on the plant. Neem oil contains the natural insecticide azadirachtin, which reduces insect feeding and prevents immature insects from maturing into adults and laying eggs. Because grasshopper nymphs already look like adult grasshoppers and do not go through a complete metamorphosis, neem is more effective as a feeding deterrent than as a growth regulator on grasshoppers.
http://www.gardenandflowers.com/info_12 ... ntrol.html

[ButterflyLady29]

Semaspore works well, as long as you apply the bait before they get to the point where their feeding is destructive. The best part about it is that it's spread through cannibalism. While not 100% fatal it does reduce numbers and survivors don't eat nearly as much as they would without the infection.