New hopes for combating hopping pests in the US

The Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) is a voracious feeder that wipes out acres of grasses and field crops in no time. When it’s young, though, it grows so fast that its immune system cannot keep up. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are finding that this may be the best time to use biocontrol fungi to target the insect pest. Beneficial fungi that could help manage grasshopper populations are being tested by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and Utah State university colleagues.

Entomologist Stefan Jaronski with USDA's, ARS at the agency's Northern Plains Agricultural Research Lab in Sidney, Mont., is working with university and U.S.D.A. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service scientists to evaluate several fungi that could be used as biocontrol agents against these hopping pests. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.

Each adult female grasshopper can lay multiple egg pods each containing many eggs in one summer, which could greatly increase the population the next summer, after the eggs hatch. This compounding effect could lead to drastic yield losses for farmers and ranchers as grasshoppers, who can eat their body weight daily in vegetation, leave less grass on the rangeland for livestock and sometimes move into crops and feed on wheat and alfalfa.

State and federal pest control agencies spend millions of dollars each year to control grasshopper and cricket populations. During a particularly bad infestation, the cost can skyrocket. Coupled with the loss of revenue for farmers and ranchers, a grasshopper infestation could cost our country billions of dollars per year. Read more...


This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.