Farmers fight Mormon cricket infestation

Farmers all over northern Nevada are struggling to minimize crop damage from millions of Mormon crickets now blanketing the state.

"It is way worst than last year, and last year was the first time we'd seen real numbers of crickets," said Chuck Giordano, a Humboldt County commissioner who for 30 years has owned a 1,500-acre alfalfa farm 60 miles northwest of Winnemucca.

It's too early to calculate the costs of this year's infestation, which is affecting more than 5 million acres in Elko, Washoe, Lander, Pershing, Humboldt, Eureka and White Pine counties, according to Martin Larraneta, supervisor in the Winnemucca office of the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

But Giordano said crickets have eaten in about 100 feet on his fields bordering sagebrush and says that could amount to about a $6,000 loss for his farm.

But his remaining hay has been hurt, too.

He said dead crickets - about seven per square foot or 300,000 per acre litter his cut hay.

"When we cut and bail the hay the field is full of them, so we can't sell it for horses or to Japan for compressed hay," he said.

"We've been selling it to dairies."

That's OK for now, but it could spell trouble if the crickets are still there for his second cutting in two to four weeks.

The second cutting is higher quality hay and usually sold for horse feed or to Japan at a premium.

If the hay is still full of dead crickets, Giordano said he'll have to sell it to cattle ranches and dairy farms for $30 to $40 less per ton.

Mormon crickets originate in the mountains and make their way down into the valleys when their populations reach a critical mass.

The population has been high the last several years due to drought and mild winters, which allow more young crickets to survive.

The department of agriculture does aerial spraying on public lands to help slow population growth and reduce the numbers that migrate from the mountains to farm and residential lands in the valleys.

The department's office in Winnemucca, for example, this year sprayed about 33,000 acres in Humboldt County and another 33,000 acres in Washoe County north of Reno.The spray, which is applied by plane, is Dimilin, a growth regulator.

The spray has been applied in four out of six field offices of the Bureau of Land Management, which has to approve application of pesticides on public land, said Ted Angle, natural resource specialist in BLM's Reno office.

"Our approach is to reduce the population to below the economic threshold," said Angle.

That threshold - the number of crickets that can cause economic damage is eight crickets per square yard.

Once the crickets reach the valleys, baits have to be laid using 2 percent carbaryl.

The potency is enough to kill the crickets but mild enough not to harm the cricket's predators, according to Larraneta.

Crickets are cannibalistic so the bait works again and again as more live crickets come along to consume dead crickets.

The USDA provided about $300,000, which was used for the aerial spraying and some of the baits, said Larraneta.

In Humboldt, the rest of the money has been contributed by the county and city, and some citizens and businesses, including Newmont Mining Corp.

and J.R.

Simplot Co., which donated a pallet of bait.

The cost-share program, which pays half the cost of the bait, has helped area farmers mitigate some of their losses.