Noticing a lot of grasshoppers in your yard lately? Us too! The Eastern Lubber Grasshopper are prominent in Florida from March to November. These grasshoppers are a destructive garden pest. They’re one of the few species that occur in such significant numbers that they can cause significant damage to citrus and vegetable crops, as well as ornamental landscape plants. They consume the leaf tissue of numerous plant species, and have been known to completely strip the foliage from the plants.
They will eat irregular holes in vegetation and then move to another leaf or plant. They feed on a broad host of vegetation including 100 species of plants from 38 plant families, including shrubs, herbs, broadleaf weeds and grasses.
They prefer:
- Peas
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Beans
- Cabbage
Less preferred are:
- Eggplant
- Tomato
- Pepper
- Celery
- Okra
- Fennel
- Sweet Corn
In flower beds lubbers commonly defoliate the following:
- Amaryllis
- Amazon Lily
- Crinum
- Narcissus
- Oleander
- Butterfly Weed
- Canna
- Mexican Petuna
- Lantana
The Females can lay clusters of 30 to 50 eggs underneath the soil surface at a time, meaning the situation can quickly grow out of control. So how do you know if they are eastern lubber grasshoppers? So, their colors vary, but most commonly found as yellow with black accents. The males can grow up to 2inches in length while the females can get as big as 3 inches. They normally are seen in abundance making removing them by hand very difficult. If you find your ornamentals are being destroyed by grasshoppers its always best to get a professional pest control company involved.
