Journal of Economic Entomology (1951) 44, 76-82
C. Wakeland (1951)
Changing problems and procedures in grasshopper and Mormon cricket control
Journal of Economic Entomology 44 (1), 76-82
Abstract: A review of methods used in the United States for the control of grasshoppers and the Mormon cricket. Control of grasshoppers is planned as the basis of forecasts derived from surveys of eggs and adults. New problems arise from changes in cropping practices. Thus, the recent high price of alfalfa seed stimulated an increase in the acreage devoted to seed production in Arizona an increase in the acreage under clover in the Sacramento valley in California has greatly magnified the problem of grasshopper control. The problem is complicated also by changes in the predominance of grasshopper species: e.g. while Melanoplus mexicanus increases during dry years, it is replaced by M. bivittatus, M. differentialis and M. femur-rubrum during wetter years. Control practices may also cause changes in the species dominance; aircraft baiting in Montana and Wyoming in 1949 reduced the species controllable by bait, but those that feed little, or not at all, by bait on the ground are now predominant. In recent years, old methods have been superseded by the use of dry bait spread by aircraft, and of sprays and dusts of benzene hexachloride chlordane, toxaphene and aldrin. The problem of range grasshoppers must have long existed in western states, but it was only with the more recent high prices for cattle that ranchers became insistent on grasshopper control, and in 1949 and 1950 more than five and a quarter million acres of ranches were baited. Development of control methods has outdistanced development of knowledge of grasshoppers and of the means of controlling outbreaks at their inception and much more research is needed, concerning the causes of outbreaks. Prevention of outbreaks of Mormon crickets by timely control is feasible; the crickets were increasing in 1950 and 1951 was expected to be critical.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied from Acridological Abstracts with permission by NRI, Univ. of Greenwich at Medway.)
Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
control - general
Pest and/or beneficial records:
| Beneficial | Pest/Disease/Weed | Crop/Product | Country | Quarant.
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melanoplus sanguinipes | ||||
| Melanoplus bivittatus | ||||
| Melanoplus differentialis | ||||
| Melanoplus femurrubrum | ||||
| Anabrus simplex |
