Grasshoppers Anyone?  

Posted by Wyatt

A Texan farmer goes to Australia for a vacation. There he meets an Aussie farmer and gets talking. The Aussie shows off his big wheat field and the Texan says, "Oh! We have wheat fields that are at least twice as large." Then they walk around the ranch a little, and the Aussie shows off his herd of cattle. The Texan immediately says, "We have longhorns that are at least twice as large as your cows." The conversation has, meanwhile, almost died when the Texan sees a herd of kangaroos hopping through the field. He asks, "And what are those?" The Aussie, fed up with the Texan's bragging replies with an incredulous look, "What, don't you have any grasshoppers in Texas?"



This joke brings us to a good point, how do grasshoppers affect farmers and ranchers? Each adult female grasshopper can lay multiple egg pods—each containing many eggs—in one summer, which could greatly increase the population the next summer, after the eggs hatch. This compounding effect could lead to drastic yield losses for farmers and ranchers as grasshoppers, who can eat their body weight daily in vegetation, leave less grass on the rangeland for livestock and sometimes move into crops and feed on wheat and alfalfa. 

So I came across this joke and I think that you will find is as good as I did, It goes something like this.


The worst part about grasshoppers is that they thrive in the heat and usually in droughts were feed for livestock and crops are already at a minimum. Research is ongoing in finding a way to prevent and slow the rapid population growth curves. I like to think that the best way to deal with this problem is to let nature take its course with cold winters and good birds. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2011 . You can leave a response and follow any responses to this entry through the Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) .

1 comments

Anonymous  

Great Blog
The joke was cute, but the information on your blog is very informative yet easy to understand and gives just enough information to keep watching for more. You have a great knack for this!!!