Grasshoppers - Where are they?

Letort

Letort

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Joined
Dec 14, 2008
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I have seen very, very few in my area (SC PA) so far this summer. What about your area?
 
I live beside some large fields that up until 2 years ago produced large amounts of grasshoppers. My cat would catch one every now and then and bring them into the house.

The last 2 years I haven't seen any, and the cat hasn't brought us a prize either.
 
Look for grasshoppers in the grass. I saw a large one in the shade of the Courthouse. Global warming is to blame.
 
I'm seeing a lot in NY. I don't recall how it compares to previous years, but every hike I've been on for the past month has had a mess jumping / flying ahead of me on the trail. The kids have been chasing and capturing them.

I saw a giant green one on a glass door at work yesterday. I also saw one chilling on a piece of slate in my yard today. 🤷‍♂️
 
Dear Letort,

This usually prime time for them where I live just outside of Harrisburg, and I haven't seen one this year. Many years around the end of August when I took the dog out, he or she would spend time chasing grasshoppers. Not this year.

I will say that we had lightning bugs in our yard for a solid month this Summer. I don't think I saw 10 of them total in the prior couple of years.

Maybe some insects just run in cycles?

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂
 
I had crazy slug issues in my garden this year. I know several counties where slugs hit crops hard this year. We had more lightning bugs around me this year than I have seen in a long time. I cant say I have seen a grasshopper this year. Seem to have large crickets in spurts around my house that I don't recall. It was a strange year with early warm up
 
In the appropriate height plant material at a park where I cover 4.5 mi on each of a few days per week I’m seeing good numbers of grasshoppers in the strips of foot high grass and weeds between a dirt road and a corn field. These are areas that are only mowed a few times per season, if that. Next to those areas are fields that are mowed about every 10 days. No hoppers there. The hoppers have only appeared in good numbers in the past two-three weeks and they were quite small when they first showed up. Now they are approaching standard size.
 
In farming there been a shift to more corn and soybeans acreage, and less hay acreage. That may be affecting grasshopper populations.
 
The roads at Gettysburg where I run don't seem to have as many hoppers as usual, however, in my experience this usually doesn't tend to peak until later in Sept.

Will keep my eye out.
 
Dave_W said:
in my experience this usually doesn't tend to peak until later in Sept.
Click to expand...
Correct. We had a small field between our office and Nockamixon Lake. At lunch time I used to occasionally walk out to the edge of the lake and feed the bluegills the hoppers that I caught along the way.
 
troutbert said:
In farming there been a shift to more corn and soybeans acreage, and less hay acreage. That may be affecting grasshopper populations.
Click to expand...

Sources?

Our alfalfa acreage stays basically the same, the corn and beans ratio will fluctuate based on prices.

As for grasshoppers, I haven't thought of it until this thread, but I haven't seen that many this year. I haven't seen the big "tobacco spitting" ones for years.
 
BrookieChaser said:
Sources?

Our alfalfa acreage stays basically the same, the corn and beans ratio will fluctuate based on prices.
Click to expand...
That's not from data, just from observations from growing up on a dairy farm in the 1960s and early 1970s and how things have changed up to the present. I think the reason has to do with the change from small dairy farms (about 50 cows) to big dairy farms (800, 1000, 1500, 2000 cows).

But then I Googled it. This article talks about long term trends toward lower hay production in the US.

www.farmanddairy.com

Are you charging enough for your hay? - Farm and Dairy

Those making hay should consider market changes, long-term trends, and personal enterprise costs to make sure their hay is priced fairly and competitively.
www.farmanddairy.com
 
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I do agree the small farms, less than 50 head, are fading. That's another subject. But even 800 head farms are still growing hay proportional to their herd.
I believe the article is talking bale production not hay acreage. That's true that most farmers aren't bailing hay, and most of those, unless it's sold to the public (equine), ain't small square bailing. So less hay is on the market as a commodity at auction.
Most hay nowdays is in haylage for feed. Instead of being in the mow it's in the trench or ag bag. The article mentions dry vs wet climate and chopping hay takes the drying time out of the equation. But the hay is still there in acreage.
Now grass hay, that's a little different. Where most farms back when had waterways and lesser fields in grass hay, cut once or twice a year, a lot of farmers are trying to maximize those acres now that equipment has made that easier.
 
BrookieChaser said:
I do agree the small farms, less than 50 head, are fading. That's another subject. But even 800 head farms are still growing hay proportional to their herd.
I believe the article is talking bale production not hay acreage. That's true that most farmers aren't bailing hay, and most of those, unless it's sold to the public (equine), ain't small square bailing. So less hay is on the market as a commodity at auction.
Most hay nowdays is in haylage for feed. Instead of being in the mow it's in the trench or ag bag. The article mentions dry vs wet climate and chopping hay takes the drying time out of the equation. But the hay is still there in acreage.
Now grass hay, that's a little different. Where most farms back when had waterways and lesser fields in grass hay, cut once or twice a year, a lot of farmers are trying to maximize those acres now that equipment has made that easier.
Click to expand...
 
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