ROCKFORD-- Grasshoppers have been wreaking havoc on Palouse farmers’ crops all summer long.

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Now farmers are finishing the wheat harvest and they hope to see a lot loss of the insects.

One farmer, Paul Dashiell, is a third generation farmer.

He has 4,500 acres near Rockford.

Dashiell says the grasshoppers latch onto anything that is green, and then devour it.

He says over the last few years the buildup of grasshoppers appears to be getting worse.

The grasshoppers come in and completely strip a crop, taking off the green and leaving the steam.

The cheap chemicals Dashiell would normally use to kill the grasshoppers in the past are now outlawed.

Dashiell says the legal chemicals are just too hazardous to his crops and the burn ban in Washington prevents him from burning the grasshoppers out.

Dashiell says he is running out of weapons to stomp out the bugs.        

Currently the grasshoppers are going underground to lay their eggs, making them the invisible problem right now.                       

Farmers like Dashiell can only hope for a wet spring because a lot of moisture will drown the eggs.