Cricket woes the worst yet

This year's cricket invasion is the worst yet, with cricket sightings in unfamiliar places across the state.

The little pests have been spotted as far north as I-80, and all the way south to Beaver County, said Matt Palmer, a Utah State University extension agent who covers Tooele County.

"As soon as you think you have a handle on them, they break out in other areas," Palmer said. "They seem to have been marching a lot this year."

Mormon crickets and grasshoppers infested 3.5 million acres of western Utah rangeland, farms and desert last year. Palmer said it's too early to tell what the damage is this year but predicted it will only get worse.

Larry Lewis, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture and Food, said he estimates crickets and grasshoppers will take over nearly 4 million acres of land this summer.

The state has more funding, which has helped to fight off the crickets and grasshoppers.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, secured $7.6 million in the past year to fight grasshoppers and crickets in Utah. That's up from just $650,000 the previous year.

This year, the state sprayed land near Ibapah, Vernon and Fillmore. But once one area is sprayed, the crickets just move on to a pesticide-free area, Palmer said.

The past few years, the state focused spraying efforts on the Rush Valley, and it worked. This year's invasion in that area has been relatively mild, Palmer said.

That's no problem for the crickets — they just moved on to the Grantsville area.

"Next year we plan on treating a good portion of the Grantsville bench," Palmer said. "There is always a pest out there to keep us busy."

The crickets are near the end of their life cycle, which will bring much-anticipated relief to Utah's farmers. But grasshoppers are still going strong.

Hundreds of different species of grasshoppers live in Utah, and hatch at different times of the year, Palmer said. The "late summer hatchers" should be out and about at a farm near you, soon.

Lewis said grasshoppers stick around longer and eat more valuable crops than crickets do.

Final damage estimates on Utah's land from crickets and grasshoppers won't be released until the fall.

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E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com