# Grasshoppers how many is too many



## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

My son and I were out walking Orchard grass Timothy fields tonight sometimes there were as many as 25 to 30 small green grasshoppers bouncing around our feet. I was talking to a guy a few miles from me and he mentioned he had trouble with them one year. There are some spots where I feel the grass should be looking better then it is. What do you guys think and what kills them if I do have a problem and when do I spray. I do have a pesticide license.


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Ever consider getting chickens? One year we had a grass hopper problem. So bad in the pastures from them jumping around it would hurt your face from getting hit so much. But around the yard not a single one. We had free range chickens.

Another guy built a zapper that pulls behind a quad and kills them.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Don't grasshopper vary by the year, IIRC a couple of dry years (and warm falls?) will have the ability to increase numbers in later dry years, but not so during wetter years. As a kid, I remember some years there would seem like there would be a lot of grass hoppers in the wheat and some years you couldn't hardly find one. I wonder also by the time you notice them, is the majority of the damage (eating before becoming adults) done already??

Larry

PS There used to be a market for chocolate covered ants, grass hoppers, etc. Maybe this is a viable option?  :lol:


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## gradyjohn (Jul 17, 2012)

r82230 said:


> Larry
> 
> PS There used to be a market for chocolate cover ants, grass hoppers, etc. Maybe this is a viable option?  :lol:


I think it was fried grass hoppers ... bass really like them. I caught many as a kid with a cane pole, hook, sinker and a grass hopper I collected on the way down to the tank.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

r82230 said:


> Don't grasshopper vary by the year, IIRC a couple of dry years (and warm falls?) will have the ability to increase numbers in later dry years, but not so during wetter years. As a kid, I remember some years there would seem like there would be a lot of grass hoppers in the wheat and some years you couldn't hardly find one. I wonder also by the time you notice them, is the majority of the damage (eating before becoming adults) done already??
> 
> Larry
> 
> PS There used to be a market for chocolate covered ants, grass hoppers, etc. Maybe this is a viable option?  :lol:


I remember one year on dad's farm combining wheat and the grain truck bed looked like it was ready to walk off there were so many hoppers in the wheat. Can't remember if we got docked for that-too much protein?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Grasshoppers are only an issue when it gets dry here. Never really noticed em much in hay fields, we have too many cows and not enough pasture so not much cover for em there.


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## Draft Horse Hay (May 15, 2014)

In Idaho you can get bait from the county if they come out and see that you've got an infestation. The guy just walks a couple hundred feet and eyeballs the numbers to determine if you qualify. If you've called them out or wondered if you have a problem, you have a problem.

As I recall the bait (50# sacks of pellets) uses the pesticide Sevin (carbaryl?). We get hoppers every summer once the hay is gone and things dry out --- some years worse than others.


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## Dadnatron (Jul 24, 2017)

This is my 4th summer on the farm and by far the worst I've had with grasshoppers. As a matter of fact, the 3 previous years, I began thinking they just didn't have them in Kentucky.

This summer we haven't had rain for about 7wks and the hoppers are clearly 10-20x more than I had ever seen them in the wet years.

I remember in Colorado growing up, there was a 'study' going on which cost $242K. It paid for a college kid to count grasshoppers on the forest service land we were running cows on. Every day he would walk out into a pasture/meadow with a screened in cube. He would randomly drop it in the grass somewhere, and spend an hour or so counting the grasshoppers in the cube. By noon, he was done and went back to town.

I remember thinking how wasteful that was to pay him that much (I was a kid and didn't know where the money really went) to count grasshoppers.


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## Draft Horse Hay (May 15, 2014)

Dadnatron said:


> This is my 4th summer on the farm and by far the worst I've had with grasshoppers. As a matter of fact, the 3 previous years, I began thinking they just didn't have them in Kentucky.
> 
> This summer we haven't had rain for about 7wks and the hoppers are clearly 10-20x more than I had ever seen them in the wet years.
> 
> ...


Guess why they had some kid out there doing it.

My son worked one summer out counting "medusa head", a noxious weed. Paid decent but he said that was the most tedious job he's ever had ...... and he worked at McD's for a time in HS.


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