— As the number of rainless days and temperatures continue to rise, so do the sightings of grasshoppers and other bugs that thrive in dry, hot weather.

People who are trying to keep their homes or gardens bug-free are finding daily challenges in controlling four-legged insects and other pests.

“The grasshoppers are really bad this year,” said Tahlequah Farmers Co-Op General Manager Roger Saunders. “A lot of people have just kind of given up (on maintaining their gardens) because of the heat, but a lot of them are still fighting a little bit. The grasshoppers and the dry weather have been a problem. We did have a lot of blister beetles, but we haven’t had as much of them lately. We had them really bad a couple of weeks ago.”

To create a defense against the slender, winged insects such as grasshoppers or the elongated soft-bodied blister beetle –  known for its defensive secretion of a blistering agent – Saunders said, customers have been using Cyonara Law & Garden Insect Control.

“It’s just an insecticide that you can use on your garden to help control bugs, especially grasshoppers,” he said.

Cyonara Lawn & Garden Insect Control, according to online descriptions, is a broad spectrum Lambda-Cyhalothrin product used to control 130-plus insects and pests like spider mites, aphids, fleas, and chinch bugs that prey upon gardens, roses, flowers, trees and shrubs.

Heaven Sent Food & Fiber owner Coleen Thornton has been battling both blister beetles and grasshoppers, and has had ongoing skirmishes with aphids and squash bugs. She suggests use of an organic grasshopper and cricket control known as Semaspore Bait and a botanical insecticide called PyGanic Crop Protection.

“The organic Semaspore bait has a bacterial infusion or an inoculate in it that’s the same as what they get when it rains a lot,” she said. “It’s one of their natural enemies. They eat it and get sick. Grasshoppers frequently cannibalize each other, and when they do, it spreads. You can use it to surround your garden or orchard or whatever you’re wanting to protect. Chickens and guineas do a good job of controlling grasshoppers and bugs.”

Because of the weather conditions, the higher nitrogen levels in the soil have created a problem with plant lice.

“This is the first year I’ve ever had problems with aphids,” Thornton said. “That will happen when you have higher nitrogen levels in the soil. They’ll suck the good juices right out of the plants basically.”

Thornton stressed the importance of not giving a plant more fertilizer than what’s needed.

OSU Extension Agriculture Educator Roger Williams said the high population of grasshoppers is due to the lack of extended cold stretches last spring.

Williams provided these instructions for a homemade grasshopper bait:

Get 20 pounds of wheat bran or cornmeal, 2 gallons of water, 1 quart of vegetable oil, 1 quart of molasses and 1 quart of Liquid Seven or Sevin XLR.

Mix the water, oil and molasses. Add 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap; mix for emulsification before stirring in the Liquid Seven. Slowly add the water mixture to the bran and mix together. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

“After you get that mixed up to a cookie dough consistency, you then put that bait around your garden [in small piles],” he said. “The thing about it is you’ve got to put it somewhere where the ground won’t wick away all the moisture.”

Rob W. Anderson writes for the Tahlequah Daily Press.