Aside from commercial crops the American grasshopper shows a preference for bahiagrass, bermudagrass, dogwood, hickory, crabgrass, woodsgrass and nutgrass. The first is to select a plot and determine its relationship to the rest of your acreage. The area can then be walked and the number of grasshoppers that leap or fly should be counted. The second method is to sweep the plot area with a sweep net to determine the average grasshopper population. The biological controls known for the American grasshopper affect the population on a small scale.
Grasshoppers also fall prey to a number of birds.
Cattle egrets consume large numbers and to a lesser extent so do robins, mocking birds and crows. Grasshoppers are sometimes parasitized by other insects. The fungi Be auveria bassiana and Metarhizium flavoviride are currently being tested for biological control. Cultural Control Disking and plowing are two good ways to destroy grasshopper eggs and it also kills small nymphs. In citrus groves, clean cultivation acts as a deterrent to oviposition and it reduces the number of newly hatched nymphs.