By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
In the insect world, the cicadas stole the show in 2024 with the emergence of the 13-year and 17-year broods together for the first time in 221 years. While billions of the insects are impacting life in the eastern United States, another insect is making itself known in central and western Kansas: the grasshopper. Alicia Boor, agriculture and natural resources agent in the Cottonwood District for K-State Research and Extension, said there are limited options for controlling the insects.
"There are not a lot of insecticides that are going to kill the big ones," she said. "Your best bet is, if you find a hatching ground earlier in the spring, to spray using a recommended spray at that point to keep the population down. Once they get to this big stage a lot of them are at right now, unless you're going to have your neighbor and your whole neighborhood spray, you're not going to get a lot of coverage because they're just going to come back."
Certain conditions can lead to an increase in grasshoppers. Hot, dry summers can mean more grasshoppers laying eggs. If the following spring is warm and wet, more of those eggs will hatch.
"Sometimes, if we have a couple of good years where they've had a lot of vegetation where their hatching grounds are, and they don't have to go out very far, they will stay and reproduce in that hatching ground," Boor said. "If we have a year where their good vegetation dries out, as they grow up and get to that last instar stage and become full-fledged adults, they grow wings."
The grasshoppers will eat all the food in an area before moving on. Boor said the insects can eat grass but are more likely to eat more succulent plants and crops. Five to eight grasshoppers per square yard in corn or sorghum may be enough to warrant insecticide treatment. The same applies to 15 or more grasshoppers in a square yard of alfalfa, and just a few grasshoppers per square yard of wheat can be destructive.
According to research from K-State, there are approximately 115 grasshopper species in the state, and only a few pose serious threats to grass and vegetable crops. The different, two-striped, and redlegged species are the three most common types of grasshoppers in Kansas. Differential and two-striped grasshoppers may grow as large as two inches. Most grasshoppers produce a single generation annually.
Boor did have some good news about grasshopper control: chickens love the insects, and many wild birds also eat the bugs. Several mammals are also known to dine on grasshoppers.