After a summer filled with swarms of grasshoppers, experts are working proactively to educate gardeners ahead of next year’s growing season.

Why? Because what gardeners do in winter can impact next year’s pest population.

The Colorado State University El Paso County Extension Office is highlighting overwintering pests, like grasshoppers, in its educational outreach in hopes of helping gardeners mitigate the number of damage-causing insects. Throughout the past summer, grasshoppers made headlines for plaguing farmers in what some coined the “hopperpocalypse.”

“Grasshoppers kind of got people’s attention this year,” said horticulture coordinator Allisa Linfield.

“Our help desk this past year probably got at least two questions a day about grasshoppers throughout a lot of the growing season.”

The insect can cause a lot of harm to the agricultural community and economy, Linfield said, especially for farmers who might only grow a couple of crops.

“It definitely affects people at every scale of growing. A number of people called our extension office because it felt like over the course of 48 hours, everything in their garden was mowed down.”

Understanding the life cycle of grasshoppers is important to prevent explosive population growth. Here in the Pikes Peak region, grasshoppers have laid their eggs, Linfield said.

During the fall, eggs start to develop, needing heat to reach a certain developmental stage before going dormant for the winter. In the spring, the eggs finish their last stages of development before hatching.

Weather largely affects the eggs’ development — and warmer weather means more viability.

“The winter can be a vulnerable time, but if we have a warmer fall followed by a warmer winter, that’s ideal for their development,” Linfield said.

“Then, if there are areas of people’s landscapes that are weedy or covered with vegetation, that also helps inflate those eggs through winter.”

Linfield points to last winter, which was very warm and wet, followed by a warm spring — all of which contributed to the booming grasshopper population seen this summer.

“June was one of our hottest Junes on record in El Paso County, so all of that led to perfect conditions for grasshopper survival through the winter and when they hatched, it was perfect weather for them to begin feeding.”

So, what action can gardeners take to combat the hopper problem?

Linfield suggests removing weedy vegetation, especially in marginal areas around the yard that might get neglected.

Because grasshoppers lay their eggs in the upper inch of soil, you might want to uncover that layer, and even consider raking it to expose the eggs to the elements.

“Doing some good garden cleanup this season might be beneficial,” she said.

As for insecticides, Linfield emphasizes the importance of reading the labels, which will give advice about proper timing and usage to be most effective.

“People this year tended to be more reactive because they weren’t expecting the grasshoppers to be so bad, and a lot of the baited pesticides are most effective when grasshoppers have just hatched and are in their very teeny, tiny phase,” she said.

Because there was such a large number of grasshoppers this summer, Linfield anticipates another bad grasshopper year to come just due to the size of the population.

“There would be a lot of potential eggs in our soil, and we’re also having a really warm fall so far, and the predictions are for it to be a warmer winter again,” she said. “If that is the case, then we could potentially have even higher numbers of grasshoppers next year.”

That’s why agriculture experts are working to be proactive in countering the problem.

“Now that we can kind of anticipate a bad grasshopper year, people could start doing some research now about products they might want to use in their garden to control or manage populations early in the season,” Linfield said.

“But we’re just gonna keep doing what we can being here as a resource for people.”