Grasshoppers (Acrididae) and other selected orthoptera associated with tobacco, pasture and hayfields at the tobacco experiment station, Greene County, Tennessee

The seasonal development of Melanoplus femurrubrum (De Geer) and M. differentialis (Thomas) was two weeks shorter in 1980 than 1979, based on time of appearance of the third instar.

Eight species representing three subfamilies of acridids were collected. M. femurrubrum comprised 63.5% of the total adults collected; M. differentialis is totaled 13%. Camnula pellucida (Scudder), not previously recorded in Tennessee, was represented by only one female adult.

Adults of three other families represented by six subfamilies, and eleven species were collected and identified. Although Orchelimum pulchellum Davis, a tettigoniid, has not been previously recorded in Tennessee, a total of 173 adults was collected over the two seasons.

Tobacco damage by grasshoppers was not induced in plots with mowed or unmowed borders by cutting surrounding vegetation in 1979 and 1980. Nevertheless, unmowed border vegetation of tobacco plots showed some promise as a trap crop. Significantly fewer grasshoppers (1980) were in sweep-net samples from plot borders treated with acephate, than the adjacent untreated vegetation.