During this recent summer drought, grasshoppers may have been moving into your container grown annuals such as ornamental millet or container grown perennials. In the fall, you will mainly see adults feeding. Hot dry summers and warm autumns tend to be favorable to grasshoppers.
The female lays an average of 200 - 400 eggs per season! Female grasshoppers deposit their eggs below the soil surface in pod-like structures consisting of about 20 to 120 eggs that are cemented together. These egg pods can survive the winter if the soil is not disturbed. Eggs hatch into nymphs that become adults in approximately 40 to 60 days.
Eliminating tall grasses and weeds helps because the weeds are food sources for the young nymphs. If you have fallow fields nearby, disturbing the soil by tilling the fields in late summer also discourages the females from laying eggs.
Nosema locustae (Trade names: Nolo Bait, Semaspore or Grasshopper Attack) is a naturally occurring microbe that consists of spores that are mixed with baits. The microbe which is a protozoan, or one celled animal, is used as a preventive biological control against the nymphs. It is not currently registered in CT or MA. The baits also act too slowly to be used for immediate control.
Leanne Pundt, UConn Extension
Photos: Grasshoppers on perennials and feeding damage on ornamental Millet
For more information: Grasshoppers: Life Cycle and Control by Stanton Gill, Extension Specialist, University of Maryland Extension September 2013
https://extension.umd.edu/learn/grasshoppers-life-cycle-and-control
