In The NoCo

It’s a brutal year for grasshoppers in Colorado. Here’s why – and how to deal with them

By In The NoCo,

Published August 20, 2024 at 5:35 AM MDT

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A grasshopper sits on a sunflower in a yard. — Grasshoppers like this one, photographed in Louisville, Colo., have overrun areas of the Front Range this summer. Horticulture expert and entomologist Karim Gharbi with CSU extension says that with warmer days starting earlier in the season, grasshoppers come out of dormancy sooner and hibernate later, giving them more time to chew up the plants in your garden.

Grasshoppers are everywhere along Colorado's Front Range right now. They blanket the sidewalks and lawns – which makes them a pest. But they also devastate crops, which makes them a real problem for farmers.

Our friends at the Colorado State University Extension run a sort of hotline for folks with questions about gardening and lawncare. They confirmed that this is an extraordinary summer: They say grasshopper-related calls are up 600 percent in recent weeks as dozens of people call in with their hopper-related concerns.

Host Erin O’Toole got some explanation about why grasshoppers are so bad this year – and what to do about it – from Karim Gharbi, a horticulture expert and entomologist with the CSU Extension.

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In The NoCo

KUNC's In The NoCo is a daily slice of stories, news, people and issues. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show brings context and insight to the stories of the day, often elevating unheard voices in the process. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we celebrate the lighter side of things here, too.

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Ariel Lavery

Ariel Lavery grew up in Louisville, Colorado and has returned to the Front Range after spending over 25 years moving around the country. She co-created the podcast Middle of Everywhere for WKMS, Murray State University’s NPR member station, and won Public Media Journalism awards in every season she produced for Middle of Everywhere. Her most recent series project is "The Burn Scar", published with The Modern West podcast. In it, she chronicles two years of her family’s financial and emotional struggle following the loss of her childhood home in the Marshall Fire.

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Erin O'Toole

As the host of KUNC’s new program and podcast In the NoCo, I work closely with our producers and reporters to bring context and diverse perspectives to the important issues of the day. Northern Colorado is such a diverse and growing region, brimming with history, culture, music, education, civic engagement, and amazing outdoor recreation. I love finding the stories and voices that reflect what makes NoCo such an extraordinary place to live.

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Brad Turner

Brad Turner is an executive producer in KUNC's newsroom. He manages the podcast team that makes In The NoCo, which also airs weekdays in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His work as a podcaster and journalist has appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, NPR Music, the PBS Newshour, Colorado Public Radio, MTV Online, the Denver Post, Boulder's Daily Camera, and the Longmont Times-Call.

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