The biggest grasshopper invasion since World War II has hit the western United States this summer. Grass, crops, and pastures are being ravaged by grasshoppers and Mormon crickets in unusually large numbers. Most states west of the Mississippi have been attacked.
"They're even eating the paint off some of the houses," moaned Nebraska farmer Robert Larsen near where my brothers and sisters live. Outside Steamboat, Colorado, 200 grasshoppers per square yard have been counted, reaching up to one million grasshoppers per acre.
A grasshopper can eat more than half its body weight per day. Some people feel like they are experiencing one of the Biblical plagues - as if they were being punished for some "sin."
When my family in Nebraska talks about grasshoppers, I think of their cousins here in Northern California where I farm - the glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS) that threatens our lucrative wine industry. The GWSS has already infested various southern counties and a few have come up here.
Are the arrival of such pests in large numbers and often to new areas isolated incidents, or do they represent a pattern? Are these pests the problem, or merely the symptom of a deeper problem? What has happened to the predators that have historically eaten such pests?
"They're even eating the paint off some of the houses," moaned Nebraska farmer Robert Larsen near where my brothers and sisters live. Outside Steamboat, Colorado, 200 grasshoppers per square yard have been counted, reaching up to one million grasshoppers per acre.
A grasshopper can eat more than half its body weight per day. Some people feel like they are experiencing one of the Biblical plagues - as if they were being punished for some "sin."
When my family in Nebraska talks about grasshoppers, I think of their cousins here in Northern California where I farm - the glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS) that threatens our lucrative wine industry. The GWSS has already infested various southern counties and a few have come up here.
Are the arrival of such pests in large numbers and often to new areas isolated incidents, or do they represent a pattern? Are these pests the problem, or merely the symptom of a deeper problem? What has happened to the predators that have historically eaten such pests?