When Lorne Cole drove down Highway 9 in east-central Alberta recently, the grasshoppers were so thick it sounded like popcorn exploding when they hit the windshield.
The Special Areas range management specialist had never seen, or heard, anything like it.
“The hoppers are bad and they’re widespread,” said Cole, who scoffs at people who worry about grasshopper counts of 25 or 30 a sq. metre, the economic threshold to spray. In Hanna, Alta., it’s not uncommon to have grasshopper counts in the hundreds.
“At 25 per sq. m we don’t even blink an eye out here,” said Cole.
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Recently at nearby Youngstown, Agriculture Canada Lethbridge Research Centre research scientist Dan Johnson counted grasshoppers more than 1,000 per sq. m thick.
“It’s as bad as last year and some areas worse,” Johnson said.
A fourth year of hot, dry weathert has created conditions ideal for grasshoppers. The massive outbreak in parts of the Prairies was expected, said Johnson, who predicted in February that grasshoppers would be severe.
In southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, the two-striped grasshopper is the most common pest. The clear-winged grasshopper is the most common in east-central Alberta.
Cole said many farmers are taking a pragmatic approach to grasshoppers. If there’s a chance for control, many producers will spend the money on pesticides, but when the grasshoppers are coming in from all four sides, there’s little a person can do.
“Where do you start, they’re everywhere.”
Even with the warning, the sight of thousands of grasshoppers eating through a healthy grain crop or a decent pasture is disturbing.
Now that more than half the grasshoppers are in the winged migratory stage, their presence is obvious along roads and highways.
In Alberta, there are 85 types of grasshoppers, but only 12 are considered of economic importance and four are considered major pests.
Johnson has found that migratory grasshoppers that used to be common in southern Alberta are now rare there but more common near Edmonton.
The hoppers near Barrhead are called the lesser migratory grasshopper. It’s the same species that flew into Alberta and Saskatchewan by the millions in the 1930s and was dominant in southern Alberta in the mid-1980s.
One of the biggest problems with the lesser migratory grasshopper is that it attacks not only cereal crops and grass, but also canola and other broadleaf crops.
On the bright side, rain and cool temperatures this spring allowed forage to grow enough to give producers enough grass and hay despite the grasshopper infestation.
“There should be enough forage for cattle this year,” Cole said.
