Southern Alberta grasshopper population size dampened by rain

Grasshoppers are a long-time problem for southern Alberta farmers, but timely rain might’ve helped reduce their population this summer.

Farmers in southern Alberta are hopeful that rainfall has helped put a damper on grasshopper population sizes this year.

A group of grasshoppers has the ability to wipe out a field of crops if they’re not taken care of. While grasshopper outbreaks can be spotty, farmers know all too well the damage they can cause.

“Grasshoppers, they can totally decimate a crop. They can eat it almost right to the ground. So, it seems like if there’s a few, there’s a lot. And when there’s a lot, they can do a lot of damage. Unless you get control of them right away,” said Sean Stanford, a farmer from Magrath, Alta.

• Sign up for breaking news alerts from CTV News, right at your fingertips
• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

Grasshoppers flourish in hot and dry conditions like southern Alberta has seen this spring. But what rain the region has seen could help to keep the population down.

“They started hatching in mid-May, so it’s a little bit early, and then they were clipped off by rain, and then they started hatching again and clipped off by that second good rain,” said Dan Johnson, a grasshopper expert and professor at the University of Lethbridge.

“A lot of places around southern Alberta had nine or 10 millimetres on about June 12 or so, so that wiped out a number of them.”

Timely rain has kept the population at an average size.

Any additional rain at this point won’t stop more from hatching but can keep grasshopper numbers down.

“They’re mostly in the older stages now, and they could probably take the rain, but when it rains, it’s cool and they don’t grow. They just wait it out. And the longer they wait it out … the lower survival they have,” said Johnson.

While the population may not be significantly larger than last year. Farmers will still have to be on their toes.

They’ll do everything from spraying pesticides when there’s an outbreak to more preventative measures.

“It seems like they overwinter in the ditches and the tall grass and things like that’s where they get their eggs laid. So, if you can somehow keep your ditch grass shorter, that seems to be a help, because they seem to move in from the outsides of the field towards the middle,” said Stanford.

The 2024 provincial grasshopper survey notes egg-laying conditions were ideal last fall.

That means there’s still a chance for large outbreaks to occur.