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CROPS BY CONTROLLING

FACT SHEET

u. s.

Office

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
for Food and Feed Conservation
Information Supplied by
Agricultural Research Administration
Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine

T?OR 20 YEARS grasshoppers have been an annual 32-
miUion-dollar menace to American agriculture.

Since 1927, principally in the western two-thirds of the
Nation, they have destroyed food and feed crops worth
more than 656 million dollars.

At their biggest feast on record, in 1936, they gobbled
up 102 million dollars in crops.

In North Dakota alone, in 1933, they cost farmers
251/4 million dollars.

These are the losses in dollars.

In addition, grasshopper damage to range and pasture
in some years amounts to unknown millions of dollars in
lost feed and in forced sale of breeding stock and unfin-
ished meat animals.

Nor are these all the losses.

For on top of all this, grasshopper damage to crops,
pastures, and ranges opens the way to soil erosion. The
complete removal of vegetation, which frequently results
from severe outbreaks, leaves the soil ready to wash and
blow, and it may remain depleted for years.

How to Moke $25 for $1

Records show that $1 spent for control is worth an
average of $25 in crops saved. The critical world food
and feed shortage makes it imperative to save this year's
crops from grasshoppers. Here's how it can be done:

1. Kill hoppers before or soon after they
hatch.

2. Attack survivors with bait, dust, and
spray.

3. Kill remainder when they congregate for
egg laying.

4. Organize community and county-wide
control programs.

County agricultural agents, other farm specialists, and
State and Federal grasshopper-control supervisors can

help farmers develop protective seeding and tillage prac-
tices, and organize control programs. Plans, specifica-
tions, and pictures of power bait mixers and spreaders
may be obtained from the Division of Grasshopper Cori-
trol, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, 131
Speer Boulevard, Denver 3, Colo.

Attack Before They Hatch

The place for a farmer to start grasshopper control is
on his own land, and the time to start is before the hop-^
pers hatch. Plowing and harrowing are effective in de-
stroying eggs or in burying them so deeply that most of the
baby hoppers cannot climb to the surface. In areas where
grasshoppers are a menace, only fall-plowed, spring-
plowed, or summer-fallowed land should be seeded.
Though the practice of "stubbling-in" crops may deter
soil erosion, it also boosts the hopper birth rate. Where
soil erosion is likely to be a serious factor, county agents,
agronomists, soil conservationists, and entomologists
should be consulted in developing a tillage and seeding
program that will provide as much grasshopper control
as is consistent with approved local farming methods.

When farmers practice grasshopper control on their
own fields, their protected crops have more time to de-
velop enough to survive attack, their control cost is re-
duced, and they can apply more of their control efforts on
hoppers coming in from outside.

OFFC-7

April 1948

Use Bait. Spray, or Dust

Poison bait offers a simple, inexpensive, and reliable
way to kill hoppers on range and idle lands, in grain
fields, in field margins where vegetation is sparse, and in
gardens. The recommended formula is:

Mill-run bran or mixed feed ... 25 lb.
Sawdust (3 times bulk of mill-
run bran) 3V2

Sodium fluosilicate 6 lb.

Water (only enough so bait will
drip slightly when pressed

firmly in hand) 10—12 gal.

Mixing Bait. — Mix by hand on a tight floor, or in a
wagon box or similar container. Spread sawdust evenly
6 to 8 inches deep. Distribute millfeed evenly over saw-
dust and scatter fluosilicate uniformly on top. Mix thor-
oughly with scoop shovel. Splash water over dry ma-
terials three times, turning mixture with shovel after each
wetting.

Warning. — Avoid breathing sodium fluosilicate
dust. Where it is necessary to handle and mix large
quantities, the use of a dust respirator approved by the
United States Bureau of Mines is recommended.
Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after
mixing and applying the bait. All vessels and cloth-
ing used should be thoroughly cleaned before storing
or re-using them.

Spreading Bait. — Best time is when hoppers are on
the ground during their first feeding of the day. In de-
termining proper time, scatter a few handfuls of bait
vliere hoppers are numerous and watch results. If they
refuse the bait, wait until they become hungry. Spread-
ing bait when conditions are not right usually results in
small kills.

Scatter 20 pounds (wet basis) thinly but evenly on each
acre of infested soil. Make several casts with each hand-
ful. Be sure it falls in flakes.

Don't expect immediate results. It takes a few hours
before hoppers become ill, but they do little damage after
eating a fatal dose. When poisoned, they seek shade and
moisture and frequently die in large numbers under
plants and clods and in soil cracks. In measuring results,
study these spots carefully.

Bait is more effective when young hoppers have con-
gregated on headlands and in field margins than it is after
they have grown larger and have scattered. For effective
and timely coverage of large acreages in a community or
county-wide control program, the use of power mixers
and spreaders is necessary.

Sprays and Dusts. — Many farmers are using new in-
secticides instead of the bran-sawdust-fluosilicate bait.
Mixtures containing chlordane or benzene hexachloride

have been used as dusts and sprays. In Bureau of Ento-
mology and Plant Quarantine tests, mixtures containing
chlorinated camphene have been as effective as those con-
taining chlordane. Generally good but more variable
results have been obtained with benzene hexachloride.
These materials give higher initial kills and are effective
over a longer period when applied as sprays than when
applied in equal doses as dusts.

When used as dusts or sprays on succulent growth
along field margins, roadsides, canals, and railroads, or
on crops like rank-growing alfalfa, young cotton, flax,
and corn, these new insecticides produce a quicker control
and they kill over a longer period than the standard
sodium fluosilicate bait. Effectiveness, ranging from 1
to 3 weeks, is governed by conditions of weather and
vegetation, season, age of hoppers and the formulation
of the dust or spray.

In sprays and dusts used on range lands or idle lands,
in fields of small grains, or in field margins with sparse
vegetation, these new chemicals are not more effective
than the bran-sawdust-fluosilicate bait.

For spraying, apply 1 pound of technical chlordane or
II/2 pounds of technical chlorinated camphene pet acre;
for dusting, use II/2 pounds of technical chlordane or 2
pounds of chlorinated camphene per acre. Late in the
season, after vegetation and hoppers have grown, a slight
increase in dosage per acre of sprays and dusts may be
required.

Chlordane and chlorinated camphene are available as
emulsion concentrates, wettable powders, and dusts of
varying strengths. Emulsions and wettable powders may
be diluted with water for use with available spraying
equipment, but regardless of form or dilution the quantity
of technical material used per acre should follow the
above recommendation.

These new insecticides, applied at the right time and
place, are additionally effective if used on a community
basis. They can be applied with ground dusters, sprayers,
or airplanes, carefully adjusted for even distribution of
the right amounts over the area being treated. Use of
too much insecticide is wasteful and increases the danger
of residues; use of too little wastes labor and materials
and does not prevent crop losses.

Most satisfactory results will come when spray or dust
is applied to colonies of young hoppers before they leave
hatching grounds. This practice also makes a substantial
savings by reducing the acreage to be treated.

To prevent hopper damage to corn, treat the cornfield
margins and adjacent infested grainfields, or intervening
weed patches, when grains begin to mature.

When a whole field of alfalfa is infested, it usually is
most economical to cut the crop and then apply the con-
trol measure to protect the next growth. Do this by

spraying or dusting field margins, ditch banks, patches of
weeds, and uncut strips of alfalfa. Hoppers congregate
there after the first crop is removed. Irrigation of alfalfa
fields frequently causes many more hoppers to hatch from
eggs still present in the soil. These can be controlled by
spraying or dusting the next crop when it is 6 to 10 inches
high. By this practice, heavy deposits of insecticides on
this second crop at harvest time may be avoided and ma-
terial damage to the second growth may be prevented,
unless there are new migrations of hoppers into the field
from outside.

Caution. — Remember that chlordane, chlorinated
camphene, and benzene hexachloride, like most other
insecticides, are poisonous. Proper precautions should
be taken in handling them and in feeding livestock on
forage or pasture where any of them have been used.
Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after
mixing and applying spray or dust. Thoroughly
clean all vessels and clothing used before storing or
re-using them.

Forage treated with these new chemicals should not be
fed to dairy cattle. Treated vegetation should not be fed
to animals being finished for slaughter. A related chlor-
inated compound is known to accumulate in fatty tissues
of animals fed on treated forage and to be given oflP in the
butterfat of their milk. It is, therefore, possible that
chlordane or chlorinated camphene may behave similarly.

Forage treated with chlordane or chlorinated cam-
phene, in doses heavier than those needed for grasshopper
control, has been fed continuously to meat animals to the
exclusion of other feed for several weeks without visibly
impairing their health or development. However, this
does not bar the possibility that animals fed for long
periods on treated forage might accumulate sufficient
quantities of these chemicals in their fatty tissues to make
them unsafe for food.

Chlordane or chlorinated camphene should not be ap-
plied to fruits or leafy vegetables when foliage or fruit
that is to be used as food is on the plant, unless the residue
can and will be removed by washing or stripping.

Avoid applying these materials to legumes in bloom
or when bees are active in the fields, because of the danger
of killing the bees.

Kil8 Before Egg Laying

Effective control programs are aimed at reducing dam-
age to next year's as well as this year's crops. Grass-
hoppers deposit eggs in soil after they have developed
wings. One female may lay 200 eggs. Soil becomes
unattractive for egg laying when grain stubble is worked
after small grains have been harvested and when there is
clean cultivation of summer-fallowed fields. Such prac-
tices encourage hoppers to congregate and lay eggs in
weedy and grassy areas outside these fields. When this
happens they should be killed in these places by baiting,
dusting, or spraying, before they have had a chance to
lay eggs.

The policy that always pays off is: Kill concentrations
of grasshoppers whenever and wherever they are found,
even if they are not injuring crops. Kill them when they
are young and before they lay eggs. It is much less ex-
pensive than after they have grown up and multiplied.

Organize Community and County

When hoppers menace crops on only one farm, indi-
vidual action generally is sufficient. When there are
many of them, however, and they threaten crops on other
farms, united community or county-wide action is nec-
essary. This can he obtained only through organization,
elective leadership, and adequate financial support. A
large-scale campaign lacking any one of these elements
cannot be effective. Thorough cleaning up of a com-
munity will reduce the necessity for intensive controls
next year.

A well-organized campaign started early and pushed
vigorously to completion before baby hoppers grow wings
in most cases will prevent serious crop losses. If a "wait
and see" policy is followed, complete success is extremely
hard to attain.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1948— O-784600