GRASSHOPPER Life Cycle

Grasshoppers can decimate your garden. They eat around 50% of their weight every single day.

No matter where they are in their life cycle, they’ll chew away at both the stems and leaves of plants in your garden.

If left unchecked, this damage can become severe, leaving your entire garden without leaves, unable to grow.

Adults (1-2 inch long) are brown to reddish yellow or green in color with prominent jaws, fully developed wings, and short antennae.

They have enlarged hind legs and can jump great distances. Immature stages, or nymphs, are similar in appearance to adults, but are smaller and have wing buds instead of wings.

Note:

Ten adults per square yard are economically damaging to rangeland, according to the USDA.

Smaller numbers can damage cropland or gardens, depending on crop type and age.

A classic study showed that 6-7 adults per square yard on 10 acres of pasture ate as much as a cow.​

Not all grasshopper species are bad for your garden, but the ones that are all have a similar developmental cycle. Learning how their life cycle works is step one to killing grasshoppers before they can destroy your garden.

Grasshoppers lay their eggs, buried in the soil in pods. As soon as they hatch, grasshopper nymphs immediately start to consume plant matter in the area where they hatch. As they grow, they begin to exhaust the food supply and start to move to new areas.

It takes about 1.5-2 months for grasshoppers to reach adult stage. But once they do, they just continue to munch on the plants in your garden.

Yours in the garden Farm2Markt