permaculture

[goebel <goebel@wsu.edu>]

I am familiar with your area and was involved with the grasshopper issue. 
 The unstable nature of the grasshopper population issue is related to 
desertification.  If you look to the lifecycle of the grasshopper, they 
tend to thrive with increases in bare ground and associated dryer 
conditions which limit their parasites.

What is causing the increase in bareground?  The tall grass prairie (and 
associated communities) evolved with herding ungulates and behaviors 
associated with pack hunting predators.  There is a clue about this, a 
town on the other side of Austin named "Buffalo Run".

In a millisecond of ecological time, vast herds of bison and antelope 
roamed your region being chased by wolves and humans.  We have replaced 
these communities with non-disturbance, fire, and non-herding migratory 
herbivores.

I have several friends in your area that ranch and have reversed 
desertification, increasing native species, recharging the aquifers with 
water (wonder why Texas and other regions like California are having 
flooding problems), and decreasing bareground.  This shift on their land 
resulted in decreased grasshopper outbreaks even when neighbors had 
horrific problems with grasshoppers.

We have all kinds of tools available to us to enhance our quality of life 
and ecosystem.  It amazes me why our culture has thrown the tool of 
herding herbivores out.  Even in America's Yellowstone Park, once 
migratory herding buffalo graze in the Lamar River bottom like grazing 
cattle, totally destroying "protected" watershed.

My question from all of this is: "why is it so difficult for people to see 
"herding, migratory" ungulates as a viable (vital) tool to restoring 
ecological health over most of the land area of the earth?"  It doesn't 
mean cows, but a domestic type ungulate may be the critter that can get 
desertification reversed.

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From:   Mike Carter and Carol Cannon [SMTP:cobcrew@sprynet.com]
Sent:   Wednesday, November 04, 1998 10:52 AM
To:     permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject:        Grasshopper control.

Our area suffers from excessive numbers of these periodically; I don't 
know what species but they have even eaten all the leaves off our 
blackberry bushes.  Our neighbors have given up gardening completely.  The 
grasshoppers seem to only eat certain things, but whatever they like, they 
completely defoliate.  According to friends, some people doing 
Permaculture in a town nearby (Elgin, TX) are thinking of moving because 
of the grasshopper problem.

Does anyone know of good biological or mechanical controls for 
grasshoppers?  I would guess we sometimes have densities of 2-3 per square 
foot.  And that is with native plant landscaping.

Thanks,
Mike Carter & Carol Cannon
cobcrew@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/cobcrew
Austin, TX    USA

Carl Jeffry Goebel
WSU-Kellogg Holistic Management Project
125 Clark Hall
P.O. Box 646310
Pullman, WA  99164-6310
Phone: (509)335-7342
Fax: (509)335-1082

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