ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a grasshopper simulation model which can be used to assess forage damage in relation to grasshopper control. Control options include a protozoan pathogen of grasshoppers, Nosema locustae, which may be delivered with or without carbaryl insecticide on wheat bran bait. The chapter examines species specific relationships of forage preference, destruction, and hatching time. The model is useful for assessing impacts under alternative grasshopper control strategies. Population, environment, and grasshopper control strategies can be manipulated to determine their impacts on forage destroyed by grasshoppers. Refinement of population dynamics would allow for better estimates of forage losses. The proportions of the grasshopper population in the egg, nymph, and adult stages are determined by a set of population distribution functions within the model. The grasshopper model was used to compare conventional insecticide with wheat bran bait as treatments for controlling grasshoppers. Hatching variance of grasshoppers is affected by seasonal weather factors through the temperature experience of eggs.
