While early hatching grasshoppers may have felt like they needed life jackets to survive in some parts of Alberta this spring, they've been starting to show up in some MD of Bonnyville farm fields.
As a result, producers could be spraying for the pests in some areas, says Matt Janz, the MD's director of agriculture services.
If they do, they'll also be paid to spray the MD's road ditch beside their field. MD council approved a program last week that will see ditch spraying paid for at the rate of $32 per half mile.
Aerial spraying will be paid for at a rate of $125 per mile.
Even with all the rain, Janz said grasshoppers, which were forecast by Alberta Agriculture to be a problem here in some areas, are around.
“I've seen two fields that had grasshoppers,” Janz warned council last week, the day before another rainstorm whipped through the area.
