Gardening: How Best to Deal With All Those Grasshoppers

Several folks asked me recently about how to deal with grasshoppers damaging their gardens. This is a tough one. Grasshoppers are one of the toughest pests to deal with in an organic program.

People who raise chicken and guineas tell me they never have grasshopper problems. Free-range chickens and guineas, especially the latter, love to chase and eat grasshoppers. We have raised chickens and guineas in the past, but we’re currently down to one guinea. I need to get some more fowl. But when we had a large flock, I would let them graze through my garden in the evenings for an hour or so. If I let them stay in the garden all day, they would peck too much at my plants, especially greens. But if I limited them to an hour, they usually went straight for the grasshoppers. Poultry are a great addition to an organic program in other ways. Their droppings, feathers and eggshells provide a great addition to the compost pile.

Few organic pesticides kill grasshoppers. Nolo Bait is one exception. This product consists of wheat bran containing spores of the biological pathogen Nosema locustae. This parasitic fungus enters grasshoppers when they eat the wheat bran. The pathogen kills most of the young grasshoppers that it infects. Older grasshoppers become sick and lethargic, becoming prey birds, reptiles, quite often, other cannibalistic grasshoppers. Grasshoppers that eat the infected grasshoppers become sick themselves and the process repeats.

Nolo Bait does not harm other insects (other than crickets), nor does it harm animals that eat infected grasshoppers. I used Nolo Bait for several years, and I can attest it works extremely well. But the manufacture, M&R Durango, has faced production troubles for several years. Their factory burned to the ground in 2018, and production has been intermittent since then. There used to be another brand of Nosema locustae organic pesticide called Semaspore, but it hasn’t been on the market for several years.

Poultry and Nolo Bait are the only two organic solutions to grasshopper control that I have experience with. But I have heard about a few others. According to Texas organic gardening expert Howard Garrett, a.k.a. The Dirt Doctor, kaolin clay can be used to control grasshoppers.

Kaolin, or “china clay,” is used to make fine china and porcelain products. You can get it from pottery-making suppliers. There is also a commercial ag product called Surround WP made of 95 percent kaolin clay. When mixed with water and applied to plants, it creates a mineral film on the surface of leaves and fruit that grasshoppers and other insects find unappealing. You can apply the film up until harvest without any ill effects, other than washing or rubbing off the film prior to consumption. Heavy rain wash the film away, so you may have to reapply after a shower.

Garrett provides the following recipe: mix one quart of kaolin clay and one tablespoon of liquid soap with two gallons of water. Spray the plants thoroughly. If you use Surround WP, mix according to the label directions. Garrett also says it sometimes takes two or three coats of the film to repel insect damage.

If anyone has tried using kaolin clay or Surround WP, please let me know how it works. You can email me at andy@fayettecountyrecord. com.