In one corner of my garden, I have ten okra plants planted. I noticed a few days ago, on my approach; a hoard of giant grasshoppers takes flight. They are only on the okra plants. They show no interest in the pepper, tomato, and cucumber plants around and under the okra plants. I thought I would soon start losing okra plants to the grasshoppers, but so far; I have not found a single nibble missing from a single okra plant.
You may be seeing some uncommon behavior by a common insect. I've seen grasshoppers strip tomato plants bare. I've seen them strip the outer surface from the stem and branches of a tomato plant and leave the dying plant standing. We sometimes have plagues of grasshoppers which eat everything in their path. I have a friend whose property is surrounded by a steel pipe supported fence. He claims he drove to the gate of his property to get his mail one day and noticed the steel pipe of the gate and fence looked very shiny. On inspection, he found the grasshoppers had removed all the rust from the steel pipes. I've never seen that happen, but my friend swears his story is true.
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