Large grasshoppers hatching, growing on Florida's Gulf Coast. Here's how you can protect your plants

TAMPA - Just a few of them can wreak havoc on your plants. They're known as Eastern lubber grasshoppers and can grow to be three inches long. This time of year, Florida's Gulf Coast is a hotspot for them.

"The eggs hatch in the spring, like March or April. They start off as little tiny, little black caterpillars. They go through five phases, get bigger each time the adult form is very large, like three inches," UF/IFAS Extension Hillsborough County Extension Agent Tia Silvasy said.

They usually reach adult size in mid-summer. By July and August is when they're at their peak. Babies just hatched in the garden at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Hillsborough County Extension and are already feeding on the plants.

"Grasshoppers will start eating on the edge and the tips of the plants and their favorite plants are like lilies Crinum lilies, Amaryllis. They also eat just like broadleaf things like if you're growing a vegetable garden, kale, citrus," Silvasy said.

You can use insecticides on plants to protect them, but because of their large size and ability to detoxify natural toxins, they often prove difficult to kill. That's why removing them may be your best option.

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"You can get a bucket of soapy water and just knock them into the bucket of soapy water and then that will kill them," Silvasy said.

As Silvasy explains, if you do use insecticide, be sure to follow the directions on the label and use PPE when administering it.

"We encourage IPM integrated pest management, which includes having a healthy garden that some of the natural predators, like the birds, will be around to eat them. Also, just using least toxic pest controls first," Silvasy said.

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