It was as if Doug Bay’s wish had come true, the day the doves landed.
Bay, who grows alfalfa and a bit of corn and sorghum in Otero County, had been eyeing the 3 acres of fresh green shoots for days, worrying they were about to be destroyed by the swarms of crop-munching grasshoppers that were bouncing all over his farm.
He was holding out hope that he wouldn’t have to spray pesticide to save his alfalfa crop from the destructive insects, which are vexing farmers and gardeners from Denver to the plains this summer. Bay almost called the local crop duster, but he put it off.
Then came the doves. About 200 of the tan birds swooped down from the sky and feasted on the grasshoppers, demolishing pretty much the whole lot.
“It was kinda neat,” recalled Bay, whose family has been farming in Cheraw since 1950. “A couple hundred of them, eating those grasshoppers. They must have told their friends this was a good place to eat.”
For farmers, the best way to deal with grasshoppers is to let birds handle it. But this year, when the grasshopper infestation is one of the worst in recent history, farmers can’t rely on just the birds.
The bounty of grasshoppers is on par with last summer’s Mormon cricket invasion on the Western Slope.
Bay said he had to hire the crop duster to spray his other, larger field of alfalfa, costing him about $15 for each of the 120 acres. He’s also got 15 chickens that spend their days pecking his yard and keeping the grasshoppers at a more manageable level, at least near his house.
Scientists say the grasshoppers are having a banner year in Colorado because the conditions for hatching eggs and growing big insects were ideal. Grasshoppers lay their eggs in dirt, and the pods or “egg beds” remain underground through the winter. The eggs hatch in the spring, and the tiny “nymphs” crawl out of the ground in search of food, according to Colorado State University’s extension services.
If weather conditions are good, and there is plenty to eat, grasshoppers grow for several weeks until they reach adult size — and this summer they are quite large. The insects likely hatched earlier this year because of a mild, warmer spring, and then did not face the kind of cold, wet weather that can kill off newly hatched grasshoppers.
In Denver, gardeners are reporting extra-large grasshoppers and in extra large numbers, popping around yards and chewing holes in the leaves of their lettuce and tomato plants. On the Eastern Plains, their destruction has been spotty — some farms are having to spray pesticides or losing yields to the bugs, while others have had few issues.
For gardeners, experts suggest adding some plants that repel grasshoppers — garlic or chives — or using garlic to make a natural spray. Another idea is to cover the garden with netting to keep the insects from jumping into it. Get some chickens. Or put up a bird feeder.
While grasshopper eggs are more likely to survive the winter in dry soil, undisturbed by tillage or irrigation, the insects often live longer and grow bigger in irrigated land where there is plenty of foliage.
Farmers, including Bay in Otero County, are on their third out of four cuts of alfalfa for the season, and still keeping an eye on the grasshoppers. Alfalfa is most vulnerable to grasshoppers when it’s just beginning to grow and “they can mow it right down,” Bay said. When the plants are taller, grasshoppers can’t destroy it but can decrease its yield, he said.
At Bay’s son-in-law’s ranch, in the southeastern corner of the state, the grasshoppers hatched early and died off when they were small because there wasn’t enough moisture for them to survive. But Bay has had to deal with two grasshopper hatches, and the second one produced especially big grasshoppers.
He and others were forced to spray, he said, and Bay hired a pilot because the alfalfa was too thick to drive a sprayer through it. “Once you spray them, it pretty well kills them,” he said. “You have to watch it real close — you can spray one batch and another batch could hatch.”
Farmers also can scatter an insecticide called EcoBran, which grasshoppers will eat and die. Then other grasshoppers, which are cannibals, will eat the dead grasshoppers and die, too. But this is “hit or miss,” Bay said, because if the grasshoppers have other things to eat — say, alfalfa or lettuce — they likely won’t eat the wheat bran laced with the chemical carbaryl, which is toxic to insects.
Ranchers have little recourse, since their grazing land is so vast. Their cattle just get less to eat when grasshoppers are rampant.
It’s just all part of the season for farmers and ranchers, Bay said. “I gamble every day,” he said. “You gamble with the weather. You gamble with the bugs. So I don’t much like to go to Cripple Creek.”
On the bright side for hunters: The doves are thick this year thanks to grasshopper abundance, and dove hunting season starts this month.
Bay is optimistic lately, as he finishes the latest cut of alfalfa and moves on to cutting the sorghum, that the grasshoppers will run out of things to eat and fade out. The Arkansas River, which supplies his irrigation water, is getting low now at the end of summer. And it hasn’t rained much lately on the plains.
Bay will also keep hoping for black birds or more doves, the “most awesome” natural control for insects.
“But you can’t order a flock of birds to come in,” he said. “It’s a luck thing.”