Grasshopper outbreak brings disaster declaration in Wyoming

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Grasshopper outbreak

By Matt Joyce Associated Press writer | Posted: Sunday, March 28, 2010 4:00 pm
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NEWCASTLE, Wyo. -- Parts of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho may be in store for costly grasshopper infestations this summer.

Federal surveys predict at least 48 million acres of outbreak-level infestation this summer.

Charles Brown, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says some states may see the most severe grasshopper outbreaks in nearly 30 years.

Ranchers, farmers and pest control agencies are praying for cool and wet weather to stifle the young grasshoppers when they hatch around May and June.

In the meantime, they're scrambling to line up the millions of dollars it will cost to battle an outbreak with aerial insecticide.

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http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_acdae7b4-3a98-11df-ab9c-001cc4c002e0.html

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Re: Grasshopper outbreak

Grasshopper outlook strikes fear on Western range

Grasshopper infestations have taken on mythic tones here on the arid prairie

photo: A federal survey of adult grasshoppers last fall indicated that parts of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho could face costly grasshopper infestations this summer.

source: Associated Press, KFGO News Center

NEWCASTLE, Wyo. ? Grasshopper infestations have taken on mythic tones here on the arid prairie of northeastern Wyoming ? they blanket highways, eat T-shirts off clotheslines and devour nearly every scrap of vegetation on ranches and farms.

The myth may come closer to reality this summer than at any time in decades in several states in the West and the Plains.

A federal survey of adult grasshoppers last fall indicated that parts of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho could face costly grasshopper infestations this summer.

Ranchers and farmers as well as federal and municipal pest control agencies are praying for well-timed cool and wet weather to stifle the young grasshoppers when they hatch around May and June.

In the meantime, they're scrambling to line up the millions of dollars it will cost to battle an outbreak with aerial insecticide.

"They're grass eaters," said Tom Wright, a rancher near Newcastle in northeast Wyoming about 20 miles from the South Dakota border. "They'll eat the leaves and leave the stem. And they will eat the stems finally.

"When they're really thick, people say they'll eat T-shirts on a line," he said as he recalled a time in the mid-1980s when the grasshoppers were so thick that you couldn't put your hand on the shady side of a fence post without squashing one.

Grasshoppers are found across the United States, but outbreaks of pest species are most common in the Plains and Western states. Different species range from a length of under an inch to more than 3 inches.

They provide some ecological benefits, serving as a food source for other animals. However, some pest species are capable of eating their body weight daily in vegetation and can waste up to six times more by dropping forage to the ground.

Making matters worse is the prevalence of migratory species in the latest surveys ? insects that can fly 60 miles in a day.

The Wyoming acreage infested with 15 or more grasshoppers per square yard increased more than 10-fold from 2008 to 2.9 million acres last summer, according to federal surveys.

Regionwide, surveys predict at least 48 million acres of outbreak-level infestation this summer.

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More at:

http://www.kfgo.com/KFGO_Ag_News_Headlines.php?ID=8243

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Re: Grasshopper outbreak

CROP KILLERS: Grasshoppers in Montana the worst in 25 years

TOM LUTEY Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Sunday, July 25, 2010 12:15 am

LLON — On an abnormally cool summer morning at the Hjorth farm, grasshoppers seeking warmth form a thick stubble on the sunny face of a large barn.

“They covered two-thirds of it,” said Doug Hjorth, who farms winter wheat here with his father, Dennis. “They’re bad this year.”

The outer rows of Hjorth’s grain field have been stripped of leaves. The flower bed behind the house is lousy with tiny armored invaders. When summer’s hot breath stirs, grasshoppers erupt like popped corn from the Hjorth’s cut lawn.

“All of Southeast Montana has it bad this year,” said Shayne Galford, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service. “I was out in Golden Valley County and they had a count of 64 (per square yard). That’s high.”

Any area with 15 or more grasshoppers per square yard is considered problematic by APHIS standards. Those numbers translate into more than 72,000 hoppers an acre, enough to challenge a cow for forage on Montana’s dry ranges where a single bovine might scour 5 acres to satisfy its daily diet of 30 pounds of grass. At 64 hoppers per square yard, the insects become a voracious force, easily striping 29 pounds of forage from a single acre.

For ranchers, bare acres lead to bought grass and profit losses in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Across 17 Western states, the USDA this year forecasted the worst grasshopper infestation in 25 years, with crop and range damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The forecast was based on an abnormally high number of adult grasshoppers laying eggs last fall in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota.

The infestation has been bad for farmers like Hjorth, who watches as grasshoppers chew through a wheat crop that had record-harvest potential.

In these parts, farmers say the grasshopper hatches seem to come in waves. Just when it seems like the final hatch of hoppers has evolved into swarming adulthood, yet another batch of baby grasshoppers, each smaller than a pencil eraser head, crawls from the soil.

More...

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_ee230278-97a0-11df-80a1-001cc4c002e0.html

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Grasshopper outbreak brings disaster declaration in Wyoming

Grasshopper Outbreak Brings Disaster Declaration


12/15/2010 08:25AM


RIVERTON, Wyo. (AP) ? Farmers and ranchers in western Wyoming may be able to get assistance because of damage caused by grasshoppers in September.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared Fremont County a primary disaster area and says farmers and ranchers there may qualify for emergency loans based on their losses...

Read more:
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Grassho...id=1291375&fid=