Location: Pest Management Research
Project Number: 3032-30400-001-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Sep 9, 2025
End Date: Sep 8, 2030
Objective:
Objective 1: Determine the role of pests and beneficials on agroecosystem function and production.
Objective 2: Identify weather, landcover and biotic drivers of pest population dynamics for predictive models of rangeland and crop pest distribution, population growth and impacts
Subobjective 2A: Identify cues that cause Mormon cricket females to lay eggs that break diapause and hatch after one, two, or several winters to improve applicability of Mormon crickets as high protein component of feed and food.
Subobjective 2B: Develop and validate forecast models for Mormon cricket outbreaks.
Subobjective 2C: Investigate natural enemies for Mormon crickets in egg beds.
Subobjective 2D: Investigate the importance of weather and food availability as drivers of grasshopper population dynamics.
Objective 3: Evaluate current management approaches and develop novel sustainable techniques.
Subobjective 3A: Examine the impact of rangeland management practices on pest grasshopper populations and other rangeland insects.
Subobjective 3B. Develop spatiotemporal crop diversification strategies for sustainable management of agricultural pests such as the wheat stem sawfly.
Subobjective 3C. Develop local to landscape-scale conservation strategies to bolster natural enemy populations and conservation biological control.
Approach:
Grasshoppers, Mormon crickets, and wheat stem sawfly significantly damage rangeland and crop productivity in the Central and Western United States. Grasshoppers and Mormon crickets consume ~$2 billion USD of forage annually in the U.S. and wheat stem sawfly causes ~$250-350 million in crop damage annually. These pests are high priority targets for ranchers, farmers and federal and state land managers, since current control strategies are inadequate, costly and/or result in unacceptable environmental impacts due to the historical reliance on broad spectrum insecticides. The long-term goal of this proposed research is to develop innovative, environmentally sound and sustainable management alternatives for control of these pests which currently lack sustainable control measures. To achieve this end, we will pursue research to broaden the ecological knowledge of these pests, improve pest risk assessments, and enhance prevention of pest outbreaks. We will develop a sound understanding of pest impacts on rangeland production and determine abiotic and biotic drivers that cause crop and rangeland pests to exceed economic thresholds in the Great Plains. We will design sustainable habitat and landscape approaches to manage these pests and their natural enemies. Pursuing research in ecology, forecasting and prevention will provide the foundational knowledge necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of developing ecologically based and economically practical management strategies that reduce economic impacts and promote food security, while decreasing environmental impacts of control measures. We will communicate our results through meetings, publications and presentations targeting land management agencies, farmers and ranchers, academic societies, industry and state extension services.