This is the first time I have had to deal with Grasshoppers eating my plants...eating is a euphemism for devouring! Some of my small brugs, planted outside look awful!!! edges of the leaves chewed right to the center vein. Tomorrow I am shopping for nuclear weapons...what is the best? My weapon of choice is Sevin, powdered over the leaves. Sound right? Any better suggestions?
Carol
Grasshoppers - Yeach!
I also use Sevin, but I mix it with water and a little liquid dish soap and spray it on. Usually a Tbs. or two per gallon of water. It goes a lot further that way. I've read to NOT use antibacterial soap though. Don't remember why.
Do you spray or powder on the ground, or all over the plant?? I never can get the powder all over the plant................my nursery guy told me that antibacterial soap might damage new growth, dry it out...
I spray the plant and anything else they might eat around there too. It doesn't look as bad as the powder being all over the leaves. The liquid Sevin works best but the power will dissolve.
Great HELP! Thanks. I just choke when I have to dust the bottoms of the leaves and get it all over myself! The liquid makes a lot of sense...especially with the soap...tho agricultural oil would work too...a sticking agent.
Anti Bacterial soap (and ULTRA dish soap) are just too strong!!! Not for agricultural purposes.
Thanks Brugie....and everyone else....
Carol
I decided to first try a drench of Imidocloprid...to see if it would get the critters. Worth a try. As I went out "a drenching", I noticed some brugs totally unphased by the grasshoppers, or any other nibbles!! Monster Brug and some other un named brugs were hale and hearty...Versicolor Peach and some others were lace!
Are some brugs unscathed by the grasshoppers and slugs? If so...I want only them!!! LOL
Carol, I do not know the answer, but I would say, from one year of brug experience, that some brugs draw bugs more than others. My V Peach didn't, it was one that I could depend on, zero bugs, bloomed through the heat, no puckered leaves, always fragrant, was my hubby's fav, huge, healthy, girlie blooms. Cats gave me the most problem and they showed up at the end of the season, and I was otherwise occupied and said, to heck with it, I'll deal with it next year. One thing I will definitely do is make sure I start bug control early and go ahead and put in the mulch, regardless of how much trouble it will be if I move something. Yes, for me, it is a total mystery why some brugs attract bugs. But, it seems like the one generally mentioned as being bug magnets, held up the family name in my garden. Good luck, and good night!!
Thanks mucho!
Try diotamacious earth (I can never spell it!) you can put it in one of those puff sprayers, and it will need to be reapplied after rain. I have also used NOLO Bait. Its a bacterial agent that they eat. It kills them. They eat their own dead (gross, I know), but that kills the ones that didn't get the bait....
Thanks. I am keeping my fingers crossed with the Imidocloprid. We get enough rain here that anything applied to the leaves would run me ragged...tho' I have done it! LOL and I am ragged!!! BTW, Brugie...your Monster Brug seems to be impervious to most nasty critters so far!!!
Carol
I went to Lowes yesterday and loaded up on every kind of bug spray I thought I might need. Gretchen, you mention reapplying after rain - I know I'm probably the only person in the world that does this, but I often put off spraying because it looks like rain and i know I'll have to reapply when the rain quits. Well, it's rainy here from Dec - April and sometimes longer. This year, I'm going to try to spray in between rains, but one of my resolutions is to stop being 'afraid' of the brugs and my fear of spraying, which often means the bugs get outta control, whew!!
Carol, you must be thinking of DonnaB's monster brug. Although I'd love to take the credit, I haven't sent you anything but seeds. LOL! Thanks anyway.
OH...blonde attack!!!!
Sorry DonnaB...
Brugie...your seeds are coming UP!
LOL! Glad to hear it.
Well...the Imidocloprid did .................zip....................against the grasshoppers. Dusted the leaves with Sevin today...with fingers crossed. Standby...film at 11.
Carol
Hope the Sevin does it for you, Carol.
Gretchen, where do you buy the NOLO? Is there a mail order source? My sisters (who also live in Texas) use it on their plants. They have the worst grasshopper problem I've ever seen. Julie and her DH came home one time after a couple of days out of town and found nothing on one of their peach trees except hanging peach pits.
I want to be ready for those suckers here this summer. Mississippi grows the biggest, meanest insects in the world and they all love brugs.
Kay
Naturally, after 3 weeks with no rain, I sprinkled Sevin on everything being devoured....
We have had 3" of rain in the past 12 hours.
The road to hell IS paved with good intentions...I should have started earlier.
Good news, it will drive the Sevin into the ground and kill the Chinese Beetles! At least, that is what the Japanese etomologist told me they were!!! LOL
Carol
LOL, Carol, that is the story of my brug life!!! I swear I'm not going to 'wait' this growing season for anything, if I see a fungus or mildew or anything that needs attention, I'm going to take care of it then and there, to heck with the weather forecasts, which are only correct if I don't do what I should have done...
Yup..too right! Total of 9" past 24 hours. I hope I still have brugs left!!!
Holy Cow!! Is that normal rainfall for you? Seems like a lot to me.
Hehe...no, not normal. Tho' our annual rainfall is about 150"...traditionally it falls at night, almost every night, with the occasional big storm (we do live in the middle of a big ocean...I keep telling myself). But recently the weather has been changing...and we experience periods (weeks) with NO rain and then gully washers...3 months before we moved here, they had a record 36" in 24hours. It moved rocks the size of volkswagons down the drainage ditches and into town!!!
The first year the rain got to me...now it is like music!
Gosh, I'd love a little rain every night to keep things watered, but I'm not sure I'd like the gully washers. We have small ones here, but 9-36 inches like you mention would flood us out here.
Kay -- sorry! I've been off-line for a few days. I buy it at Schumacher's Hill Country Gardens in New Braunfels. I found some online, but I honestly can't remember how much I paid. I think this might be a little high... I hope its helpful to you...
http://www.groworganic.com/a/item_PBI600_GrasshopperNoloBait1LbSize.html
I might try Nolo too!
http://www.biconet.com/biocontrol/nolo.html Here is another place that is a little less expensive and they have a really good buy on ten pounds of the stuff.
Thanks, Brugie... Do you think it would be sufficient to sprinkle the stuff around the area where the brugs are planted, instead of all the acreage? LOL
Carol
The only problem with grasshoppers is that they can fly in from a distance. I don't know the best way to deal with them, but you might want to do quite a bit of area on both sides of your brugs. Fighting bugs is such a pain.
So right!!!
I am off to the mainland to play grandmother/mother/mother in law. Nature will just have to take care of itself without my intervention (OMG, do you think she can handle it????? LOL).
Aloha
Thanks for the NOLO sites Gretchen and Shirley. I'm going to take at look at both and try to be prepared.
Kay
http://www.hydro-gardens.com/grasshop.htm
I used this last year, and it works in the same way. I did see it is about $5 cheaper for a pound. I didn't get a early start last year, but plan on getting a earlier start this year. After we used it you could see dead grasshoppers clinging to a lot of plants.
Linda