there's been one around for years, it's called a
clover harvester.

TH

Who's got a locust problem at the moment?
This was the last time they were here in plague proportions
locust vid - mid Dec 2005

They rose a little last spring here again ....but the rains and warm we've had here in Vic has see them rise again now ....most local farmers haven't seen this here in their lifetimes so are peeved to plant in the coming season.
I'd be wondering what to do too ...the locusts are likely to rise again next spring and take out all the newly sprouted crops.
everyones on the lookout for breeding beds but missing a few will see these guys here again next spring I suppose.

Much the same here, though their numbers are a little less dense. But you can bet we'll be having problems this coming Oct/Nov/Dec.

It's a real shame the fed. gov't got rid of the national program. Individuals just can't deal with a proper plague.

I had huge numbers of wingless grasshoppers this summer, they were jumping up everywhere and actaully damaging weeds like Verbascum (Mullein), turning them into tattered rags. Tehy weren't so voracious up near my house but around 2003/2004 I had a shocking plague, they killed small trees, murdered parts of the garden, it was depressing and controlling them seems to be almost impossible in such a situation.

I'm worried that this summer's lot will have laid eggs and next summer will be a terrible plague.

anyone got any recipes?

tracking down those breeding beds is the key to this then ...best we all take a walk
Thing that's different about Vic is it's normal lack of summer rain ....this year we had plenty and why this is so foreign to us in nthcentral vic. I know it's pretty widespread but as bad as that dec05 vid at the moment here....and it's april

Latest on locusts hereabouts is they are eating just emerging crops like Canola and the early grazing wheats that have gone in. Pastures included of course

No rythm or reason as to what or what they will not eat at present.
It was said last year they do not like Lucerne but they sure do this year. Some fields of Wedgetail wheat have been totally eaten out to bare clods.
Thier numbers do not seem to be in plague like proportions but they are not moving on as is normally the case.

Have heard there is a new spray (brand name) Regent that is available....However it will only kill out what have landed to be sprayed at night or early morning before they take off.

What we need now is a break in the weather with rain and the beginning of the cold weather for nature to take care of them...This will hopefully happen next week.
Happy trails !

____________________
www.Myozspot.com.au

Goody, I would guess the reason they haven't moved on is that we haven't had any decent fronts and associated winds yet.

As you say, hopefully this weekend will be the beginning!

Some good reports about this in tonight's TV news, especially SBS and ABC. sounds utterly dire. locusts are huge, I saw the odd one around here this summer, like bananas with spots.

Wonder if it's possible to train a dog to find locust egg beds.
A few dogs with this ability would be invaluable as the locusts season ends.
Even dogs would be only able to cover so much country ...but I could imagine a dog that could smell out egg beds would be 100 times more useful than someone searching just by sight.

sounds a corney idea but I'll bet every farmer with locusts at the moment would see them as a useful tool in the overall fight ....and to my knowledge no ones tried it.

I'd have a try with my old bloke but his sensory array has gone down in overload caused by a bitch on heat over the hill .....he's on the chain this week. (wish you were allowed to do that with you kids when they are in heat )

one of the experts (well he had a dust coat on) said last night that next season will see a massive rise of locusts in victoria like no one has ever seen before. (possibly true as euro settlement has supplied the food)
Grim outlook that's for sure.
Every farmers worst nightmare if that occurs.....none I speak to have any experience with this amount and this late in the season and are all looking to the nth for advise.

Well, this morning stuck to my eastern side flyscreen, was a smallish locust! Small as-in not huge, but way bigger than normal grasshoppers. Great.

All the rain and floods and growth, and here come the locusts to eat it all.

I'm surprised no ones chatting about these locusts down in mexico here .....never seen anything like it at this time of year.
Still innundated in some areas ....promises of major swarms in the spring is obvious.

major annoyance for those collecting rain water ...all the spouts are out on the ground here ...and the tanks capped off for the moment.
Leads me to wonder how we will catch spring rains in the future if these locusts make a habit of hanging on through the summer autumn (this is dependant on summer rains again)

Needless to say, farming will be a nightmare.

We had a few small ones a few weeks ago, but it looks like the big buggas from up north are on their way down. Caught this one (3" from head to tail not including antennae) sitting on our laundry window... he'll be dispatched in due course.

Word I got yesterday from a friend who has a tame hay carter that operates taking hay from down south and around here up into markets in southern NSW and northern Vic.
Areas of pasture and crops around the likes of Swan Hill and down south of there and right across the area to the north of Swan Hill have been devastated by the hoppers.
Things were very quiet in the hay game a couple of weeks ago as there was lot of feed around after the rains in northern Vic and southern NSW as the pastures were really going great guns and then about a fortnight ago the hay guy's job suddenly started to pick up and he was carting a lot of hay into southern NSW and northern Vic again.
The grass hoppers had come through and pastures and crops that were 6" and 8" high and so dense that you walked on them, not in them, were bared to the ground until it looked like fallow in just a few days by the hoppers.
Some guys up there were close to tears as they had to start spending big again on hay to keep their cows and animals going for most of another winter and year until the pastures hopefully recovered in a few months time.

I feel for them as I know the dreaded knotted, twisted ache in the gut feeling only to well when you think you have a crop and an income for the year and in a few hours or days the year's income is just destroyed and you can't do a damn thing about it and you know that nobody outside of your fellow farmers who, like you are also in trouble will help or give a damn.

Not true ROM, many give a damn. I watch the young local blokes who have tried so hard the last few years working with l/care etc ....doing all the right things
They throw their hands in the air about these locusts coming down on them ....the young blokes are unfamilar but know the mess they are making to their farms right now.
We're having a bonnie tonite in response to the bathplugs .....all welcome as we encourage them to move sth to melb ...little hope of course

Nice pic Helen :kewl: .....ones cute, squillions are ugly.

OK AN, correction accepted but the whole loneliness and the sense of isolation just gets at one after the never ending series of disasters around here over the last decade and the steadily dropping prices and watching the debt and interest bill just getting larger and larger every year apparently with no end in sight to any of this.

My grandsons solution to the locusts ...we need a laugh sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uqiHcgeZ8M

Whilst the locusts were not in what one could call "plague" proportions there were enough about here in places that did eat off some crops.
Now that we have had a few frosts they seem to have disapeared as a threat....Only a few are disturbed from driving over pastures. Some have said frosts will not kill them but it seems to have done the trick for me at least I think/hope
Happy trails !

Wasn't there [in the past at least] concerted effort to manage / erradicate the hoppers... Before they took to wing? It may have been in my dreams or other delusions but I seem to remember maps with identified infestations and the control measures?

Used to have a plague locust commission to map and conduct large scale eradications, in the 80s. I think some government got rid of it though, no votes in it.

Still is, ant
Australian Plague Locusts Commission
http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/locusts

Heard the head honcho on the radio the other morning asking for cooperation in reporting egg beds in NW Vic so that they an hit them in spring after hatching and when when they get to the banding but not yet flying stage.