2016 Idaho Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket Program

The Idaho Department of Agriculture and its federal partners, recent issued a letter covering the 2016 policy for assisting landowners with grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation.  This year the program for private landowners will only be a distribution program only.  

Operators who wish to have help from the ISDA will need to have their land inspected.  For more information about the program, go to http://invasivespecies.idaho.gov/grasshopper-mormon-cricket-control-program/.

To get a complaint form or talk to local program representatives, go to http://invasivespecies.idaho.gov/ghmc-contact-and-request-assistance.  Click on the "complaint form" button near the top right to obtain a "fillable" pdf form and email or mail it to the indicated office.

For more specific information, contact Dan Safford, the program manager at 208-332-8620 or Dan.Safford@ISDA.IDAHO.GOV

Grasshopper / Mormon Cricket Control for 2015

Grasshopper/Mormon Cricket Control

Grasshoppers and Mormon Crickets continue to be on of the most serious pest problems in Idaho rangelands and adjacent croplands.

Idaho State Department of Agriculture Mormon Cricket and Grasshopper Control Program offers help to ranchers, farmers, and the general public in the suppression of economically damaging infestations on private or state owned lands. The program provides pest management information, insecticide bait and helps organize aerial cost share projects with private landowners to control damaging populations of these pests. Our program also strives to minimize negative environmental impacts from application of insecticides. Participants are required to abide by the EPA approved product labels and follow principles of sound pesticide stewardship.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is an important partner in the overall program. APHIS conducts statewide surveys to determine the density and species composition of grasshopper populations on rangelands as well as suppression projects.

If you need help with grasshopper or Mormon cricket infestations go to our contact information and complaint form page.

2015 ISDA Program Policy

2013 Idaho Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket Program

Grasshoppers and Mormon crickets are one of the most serious pest problem on Idaho rangeland and adjacent cropland.  These are high priority programs for the Idaho Department of Agriculture and the cooperating agencies.  The Idaho program manager, Dick Lawson reired in January and have been replace by Dan Safford.

In the past the program has included a combination of coordinated insecticide treatments, as well as the distribution of carbaryl bait to landowners.  Due to problems with the NPDES permitting, cooperative cost-share spray programs will NOT be conducted in 2013.

Carbaryl bait will be available to landowner who take full responsibility for the labor of application and proper application and storage.  No bait will be available for agricultural lands of less than 5 acres or agricultural land of 5 acres or more that does not produce an agricultural income.  A request for evaluation form must be completed and approved before the bait will be issued

For complete information and a copy of the necessary forms and contact information, please click the cricket below!

Bad news for grasshoppers

An ARS entomologist and his federal and university colleagues are testing the power of a variety of beneficial fungi as biological controls against grasshoppers and Mormon crickets, voracious pests that can eat the equivalent of their body weight daily in vegetation, leaving less grass for livestock, and also attack crops such as wheat and alfalfa. (1/6) See the whole story at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2011/110106.htm

How to Control Grasshoppers in Your Garden

Chad Cheyney, Extension Educator

My yard backs up on the desert behind my house and this weekend, while I was mowing the lawn, I noticed that I was disturbing a cloud of ½” long grasshopper, which were moving into my vegetable garden in search of a free meal as the desert begins to dry up. If I have them, then probably somebody else does too. Sure enough! The very first call Monday morning was: “HOW CAN I CONTROL GRASSHOPPERS IN MY YARD AND GARDEN?”. So here are some suggestions from Diane Alston USU Extension entomologist.

How to Control Grasshoppers in Your Garden
by Diane Alston, Utah State University Extension entomologist

There are two keys to success in combating grasshopper infestations in the yard and garden:
1) work together as a neighborhood to treat as broad of an area as possible as soon as grasshoppers begin to move into yards from nearby open fields and rangelands, and
2) initiate control while grasshoppers are young. When grasshoppers become adults, they eat much more per day and can fly over treated areas.