There are so many grasshoppers on Joe Hillberry's land in Rapid Valley that they've overwhelmed the insecticide spray, the insecticide bait and even the guinea hens.

Hillberry has a renter on his place who raises guinea hens, which love to eat 'hoppers. But they can't keep up.

The guinea hens work as a team and attack the grasshoppers, but they're soon stuffed, Hillberry said. "They start out and go like crazy for about 15 minutes, and then just lay down."

Meanwhile, the grasshoppers are eating everything on Hillberry's tree orchard and vegetable garden.

"The tomatoes have big bites out of them," he said.

"We had green beans. And they've eaten just about all the leaves off them. We should be getting flowers. They just eat the flowers off."

On the tree farm, the grasshoppers are eating the leaves. "The ones I'm worried about are the ones I planted this year," Hillberry said.

"This is the second big whammy," he said. Earlier this summer, canker worms ate the leaves off his young trees.

Hillberry is among the many gardeners and farmers in the area getting hit hard by grasshoppers.

"There are grasshoppers all over," he said. "They just flock up."

The 'hopper infestation seems to be worse on the east and south sides of Rapid City and on the prairies around the Black Hills, according to Rick Abrahamson, a horticulture educator with the South Dakota State University Cooperative Extension Service in Rapid City.

"It all depends on where you're at," said Abrahamson, who has fielded calls from gardeners about the 'hoppers.

"Some of them tell me that they've totally eaten everything. Others tell me they've hardly seen a one. I was at a home visit and didn't see any," Abrahamson said.

"One lady called me and said they've eaten everything, garden and lawn," he said.

On the lawn and in the garden near the Extension office on Centre Street, there are grasshoppers everywhere, Abrahamson said. "They're doing a number on my corn cobs. The silk on the corn is gone. There's lots of damage on the leaves and the ears."

Mel Glover of Rapid City, a member of the Master Gardeners program, said he has hundreds of grasshoppers in his garden.

"It's bad," Glover said. He said there have been three or four different waves of hatching 'hoppers.

But he said people out in the country are having worse problems with grasshoppers.

Glover said he is leaving a lot of his old plants that are dying anyway to the 'hoppers.

He said keeping lawns mowed helps hold down the grasshopper numbers.

Glover said some folks use Sevin insecticide dust. "But you hate to kill the grasshoppers like that because you kill the bees and other beneficial insects."

Hillberry said he sprayed Sevin around his young trees to try to protect them from the infestation. "Then I put out some Sevin bait. That worked well for a while," he said. "But there's just so many this year that you couldn't keep up."

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8415 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com.

Tips for combating grasshoppers

Pennington County Extension horticulture educator Rick Abrahamson offers some tips for protecting your garden from grasshoppers, besides waiting for the first freeze.

Spray an insecticide called Tempo in a buffer strip around the garden. Be careful to avoid direct contact with vegetables.

The Tempo kills the grasshoppers present and has a residual effect that discourages grasshoppers for another 10 to 14 days, he said.

Spray Sevin on the hoppers in the garden. But, Abrahamson cautioned, "Those big ones are hard to kill."