Grasshoppers, Drought Compound To Cause Ag Producers’ Problems
The extremely dry weather conditions has resulted in an onslaught of grasshoppers to eastern Montana and the entire state.
Tim Fine, MSU Extension agent in Richland County, feels that this is the worst year that he has experienced with grasshoppers, “when you compound it with the drought.”
Unfortunately, Fine said there’s not much farmers and other residents can do to control grasshoppers at this point of the game.
“It’s just a bad year,” Fine said.
He added that grasshoppers also may be more visible to some residents because there’s nothing for them to eat because of the dry conditions.
According to pest management research at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Sidney, “It has been estimated that grasshoppers annually destroy on average at least 21 to 23 percent of available range forage in the western U.S. Traditional crisis-directed chemical control programs are economical only under certain conditions, do not provide predictable long-term control, have potentially important non-target effects, and may even exacerbate grasshopper problems. Due to the historical emphasis on grasshopper outbreak suppression and intervention, ecologically-based preventative management of grasshoppers has received limited attention. We are examining the use of habitat management techniques such as burning or livestock grazing on rangeland as a method of manipulating the quality of habitat available for grasshoppers and/or their primary predators, and as a result, reducing grasshopper outbreaks. A promising ARS study found that during an outbreak period both grasshopper densities and forage consumption were five to nine times lower in twice-over-rotational grazing pastures than in season- long grazing pastures.”
