Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was wishing that I had taken photo's of the countryside around Alive Springs after our recent heavy rains which even filled the usually dry Todd River, most people would not believe how green it is here.
I have recently travelled to Darwin and down to the Riverland in South Australia and Alice was far greener
However with all good things there is generally a downside and for Alice gardeners it has been plagues of grasshoppers
but an interesting observation
Very few have attacked the AP growbeds
Not sure why but my guess is the height of the GB's
Another plus for AP

any way to do an experment?

-dank

There should be no reason for the plague to not attack your AP. It has to be that you've got some good companion planting or something.... possibly the density of plants, but there's nothing about AP specifically that I can think of which discourages pests. Maybe you can isolate what it is?

The only thing that I can think of is the height of the GB's

The fish ate 'em.

Yeah, haven't found that anything beside netting can deter our grasshoppers, or locust or other grasshopper type thing we have here, from eating our vegies. They particularly like the bean leaves. They fly very randomly but very high and just love or densely vegetated grow bed for both food and protection. But the fruits they seem to have left. They munched the leaves of beans, zucchini and lettuce and most of my beautiful little seedlings. However, can't be sure they are the only culprits as we had some caterpillars move in as well.
The fish would eat a wayward grasshopper if it happened into the tank but not all of it (gross!) they loved the caterpillars though!

Indi, Tom Price

a good size flock of 1/2 grown baby chickens or guinie hens, around the perimeter of the garden, will keep the grasshoppers thinned out real well, and from getting to the garden....

for a couple of years we had them around here like a plague, and i fed that first batch of baby chickens lots grasshoppers that i had caught, and when they got old enough to roam around, they were grasshopper eating machines, and would chase one down, all the way across the yard........

there have not been many grasshoppers around here sence then.....

I wish I could have chickens, but they could not run around the yard because of the hawks that live in the area... but that is one very good permaculture technique! Great idea to incorporate chickens into a protected area
I will do that one day when I have finally moved to my dream house!