02/16/05 Lawsuits, cricket spraying go hand to han

Nearly 2.8 million acres of southern Idaho land were thick with Mormon crickets and grasshoppers last year and there's every reason to believe just as many or more of them will hatch this year following our mild winter. Dave McNeal of APHIS, the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service has put out for review his plan to attack the pests with bait and aerial spraying. Past lawsuits or threats of suits have effectively halted all aerial sprays in Idaho. MCNEAL "The bait is applied as a dry material at ten pounds to the acre. Effectively you can get about 250 acres out of a planeload of bait. If you have that same plane up with Dimilin spray you can easily get several times, maybe up to ten times the coverage." We're now in the sixth year of the Mormon cricket infestation, which now stretches from Adams County, through Owyhee and Elmore counties and now extends eastward to Oneida County. McNeal says these types of insect infestations are cyclical. MCNEAL "That outbreak of them can last up to ten to 15 years. There was an outbreak here in Idaho in the 40's that I think is documented as having extended that long." Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott