It's grasshopper time

LAKE COUNTY - For the past six years, Sanders and Lake Counties have been infested with economically damaging grasshopper numbers and, because of that, land owners, agriculture producers, even lawn and garden people, are finding the nuisance hard to control.

"We're anticipating worse than last year by quite a bit," Tom Benson, Lake County Weed Control coordinator, said. "It is going to be a full-blown epidemic."

According to Benson, the county's grasshopper infestation, which typically runs between three and five years, has just been getting worse and worse in recent years. Due in part to the drought, the situation is becoming more dire because people haven't treated it until now.

Long dry periods, like the extended dry fall weather in recent years, will allow grasshoppers to lay multiple egg beds, Jack Stivers, with the Montana State Extension program, said. If the conditions are favorable in the spring, those egg beds become hatching beds. Normally, grasshoppers prefer dry ground for hatching, so experts don't yet know how this recent wet weather is going to affect the hatch. There are two rules of thought: Either the grasshoppers will be destroyed to a manageable level, or it's just going to be delayed because of the weather.

Before this last Memorial Day rain shower, Stivers said he was trapping 80 to 120 grasshoppers per-square-yard. An economic threshold determined by the United States Department of Agriculture is 20 grasshoppers per-square-yard.

"In the last couple years, we've had damp, wet weather and we've thought, ‘OK it's over, we won't see them anymore,' but it's actually just delayed the hatch," he said.

Adding additional concern, the prolonged wet spring seasons haven't allowed grasshoppers to be susceptible to a naturally occurring fungus, called "nosema locustae", which would limit their numbers before many reached their second "instar," or stage of development.

"That's what's on people's minds," Stivers said. "‘Do I have to spend the money on insecticides, or is the weather going to reduce the population enough that I don't have to?'"

After the devastating results landowners suffered in 2009, the Lake County Commissioners Office appointed a county-wide task-force for the specific purpose of "researching, qualifying, advising and promoting the best options for grasshopper management."

Commissioner Paddy Trusler said the county is waiting until the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (who monitor the hatching beds) say the county's agronomic threshold is met before implementing the preconceived plan of action.

"The commissioners want to help and reduce any type of economic loss, but the budget situations don't allow for them to completely make the problem go away," Stivers said.

The program says if it's determined that the grasshoppers are economically damaging to agro-businesses, the commissioners will implement an emergency mil levy that will subsidize land owners by the reimbursement of half of their insecticide cost.

If the mil levy is put into place, there is a cooperative agreement that landowners will need to file with the Lake County weed office. The tax, which allows for two mils at $16,260 each, will total approximately $130,520. That will not affect Lake County citizens until November.

"We really sat down this winter and talked about it," Benson said. "Obviously no one wants a tax, but compared to what we're at risk to lose if we don't address the issue, we should get that amount back ten-fold."

Grasshoppers can decimate fields, eat the leaves off the trees and all the vegetable plants. While beneficial in small numbers, if grasshopper populations get too big, they are truly devastating.

"Once you get to a point where you exceed that threshold, grasshoppers will eat everything in their path right down to the ground," Trusler said. "Last year, we saw diminished grasses being grown, calf weights were substantially less than county average because the alfalfa crops depleted during the winter."

The next step, which will take place as soon as the USDA-APHIS findings conclude, is to educate the public through a series of town hall meetings held in at least three locations throughout Lake County. Those meetings will cover the entire plan for the public and advise landowners of the options available to them. Topics will include funding, costs and reimbursement. The approved control methods and insecticides, private versus commercial applicators, timing and application processes will be discussed as well.

"I talked to several land owners and when you consider the importance of agriculture in the area and saw what it did last year, you can understand why we did what we did in order to be prepared for it this year," Trusler said. "This is our attempt at recognizing the value of agriculture and how local land owners and local government can work together to solve a problem."