Nosema Locustae

I was out in the garden talking to Mr. Cross, who arrived again in the cow pasture on the side of the fence on his tractor. He said he was done planting for the season. I am still planting, so I wondered if he was just out of space. He told me that he never plants late. When I asked why, he said, "Grasshoppers'll git ya."

So I turned to Facebook.

Now, it seems like an obscure question to just throw out on my Facebook wall: "How do I get rid of grasshoppers in Texas?" But the answer turned up in no time at all - and it was unanimous. Everyone's grandfather or uncle or friend had used NoLo bait, Nosema Locustae - a biological weapon against the grasshoppers that roam my 10 acres like a plague from mid-summer to fall. I noticed their babies the day after Mr. Cross mentioned them. One footstep in the tall grass sends about 50 of them flying through the air. Tiny as they are now, they will grow up and cause major damage. I once saw a woman's entire landscaping project eaten by them. But the people who have been here a long time (except, surprisingly, my next-door neighbor) know what to do.

NoLo bait is totally organic. It's bran flakes (which I guess grasshoppers love) laced with spores that produce an infectious disease only in grasshoppers and Mormon crickets. Humans, birds, animals, even other bugs, are caused absolutely no damage from the bait (or so the package says). Babies die within days. Older grasshoppers become unable to reproduce and unable to eat. Today, days after I put it out, I'm already seeing fewer of the little guys. Hopefully their parents will take the hint and go destroy the plants somewhere else.