Moon Dancing
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Macho
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Grasshopper Bait Formula #5 - 2006/07/02 01:41
Grasshopper Bait Recipe
This year’s long wet spring brought many changes in pest problems. In addition to increased problems with flies, molds, mites, midges and mosquitoes, we are experiencing a grasshopper plague. My experience with grasshoppers is that they hatch in five waves.
We are on the second wave and in big trouble. We have grasshoppers in the barns munching on the hay. A neighbors bushing eucalyptus trees are bare of leaves up to the about four feet from the grasshoppers invasion. We were losing the first planting of corn right before it tasseled out to the grasshoppers. By the thousands they fly up in thick waves ahead of you when you walk into the fields.
Very effective commercial poisons are available but this recipe works and is nontoxic to the environment. It is from Money Making Formulas, Chemical Publishing Co. Inc NY, NY, 1939, section Farm and Garden, page 110 Grasshopper Formula #5.
Most of the formulas in this old time book call for arsenic or cyanide but this Grasshopper formula is tried and true and relatively inexpensive. My family has used it for years. "This formula is as effective as a 5% arsenic solution and is harmless to human, animals and birds." (pg 110)
Grasshopper Formula #5
Bran 60 to 65 ounces
Molasses 15 ounces
Epsom Salts 20 to 25 ounces
Water Enough to moisten
Broadcast this mixture in a wide area around the boundary of the property that you want to protect, barn, garden, lawn, pasture, or orchard. We use a hand trowel to scoop and fling it to broadcast. As I said this formula is tried and true. It works by dehydrating the grashopper after they eat it. The molasses attracts them and the bran holds/binds the other ingredients.
Bran (50 pounds for $8) and Livestock molasses (five gallons @ $14) are available in large quantities at feed stores and Epsom salts (4 pounds for $2) is available at the local over the counter section in pharmacies, grocery stores or discount stores.
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