Approximately 8/18/03 22:44, Fito uttered for posterity:

"John Hall" wrote in message
news
Yesterday I heard (from an acquaintance of a friend, so cannot vouch
for the veracity, merely relate it as told to me) that someone near
here accidentally dropped a container of garlic butter, which popped
open and splattered the contents on the ground. He was amazed to see,
several minutes later, hundreds of grasshoppers eagerly eating it.

He was even more amazed to see, about fifteen minutes later, hundreds
of dead grasshoppers. Apparently the Alberta Agricultural Research
organisation (IIRC) is following up on this.

Is this an Old Wives' tale, or an Urban/Rural Legend?

It won't cost anyone much to try this out.

--
John W Hall
Cochrane, Alberta, Canada.
"Helping People Prosper in the Information Age"

I crossposted this to a relevant ng in hopes that someone there may know.
Hope no one minds too much.


There are organic gardening sites claiming that garlic
extract spray has some deterrent effect on grasshoppers,
however the effect doesn't appear to be toxic. Merely
that the non-gourmand grasshoppers would be encouraged
to seek other foods. Strongly suspect that this tactic
is useless on italian and/or asian grasshoppers.

There *are* several recipes for sauteing the little buggers
in garlic butter.