Wet Weather and Hoppers
You’ve just gotta look for a silver lining. Despite all the canceled team ropings and little league games not to mention frustrated cherry growers one positive about this wet spring is that it might have put a damper on the projected grasshopper plague in the Northwest. I’m Susan Allen I’ll be back with our Ag Secretary’s recent grasshopper proclamation. The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, better known as “APHIS” like aphid, reported that western farmers and ranchers should plan for an even worse hopper outbreak in 2010 then last summer because all those female hoppers laid eggs. APHIS listed Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming as states projected to be the hardest but right behind them was Idaho. Ranchers have been frustrated about the lack of funding for aerial pesticides but last week Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new emergency funds for suppression efforts for up to four million acres of rangeland in western states . The nearly eleven million dollars will go to the states that APHIS determines through a survey process will be incur the most damage. The grass hopper and mormon cricket suppression program is designated for rangeland, not crop land with the goal not being total eradication, rather suppression due to the fact that hoppers are native species and part of the rangeland eco-system. One of the few good outcomes about this wet spring is that it put a damper on Jiminy Crickets maternity leave meaning the Northwest won’t need to rely on unreliable government aide.
