Preventive Control

Natural enemies

Parasitoids

1. Native parasitic wasps and flies
2. Tachinid flies

Predators

1. Ant
2. Assassin bug
3. Bird
4. Chicken and other poultry
5. Cricket
6. Frog and toad
7. Ground beetle
8. Guinea fowl
9. Lizard
10. Praying mantis
11. Rat
12. Robber fly
13. Snake
14. Spider

Management and cultural practices

There is no effective control method known to control grasshopper, however the following measures will reduce the feeding damage of grasshopper;


1. Plowing the field exposes their eggs and hatchlings to predators and weather conditions that are unfavorable to them (Reissig; 1986: p. 117).
2. Planting trap strips makes the control of grasshoppers easier in a small area. To make trap strips, cultivate a black guard strip 10 m wide around the surrounding field. Leave an un-worked green strip of at least 10 m before resuming cultivation. Repeat the process as often as necessary to produce additional trap sites. Remove all the green vegetation between the trap strips to be effective. The black guard strip is enough to ensure that grasshoppers will move promptly into the trap strips to feed. However, this trap strip does not have enough vegetation to feed a large grasshopper population for more than one or two days. The trap strip effectiveness can be improved considerably by seeding the strips to wheat or rye several weeks before tillage begins (Calpas; Johnson, 2003).