Grasshoppers have defoliated my entire young orchard-- will the trees survive?

This July grasshoppers showed up and ate every leaf in sight on all of my young trees-- they got the leaves of the apples, filberts, peach, apricot, cherry, mulberry. They are all between 2-4 years old.

Has this ever happened to any of your trees? Did they recover? I am providing them with more water than usual this summer in the hopes they will survive. I have never seen the grasshopper numbers swell so large in the past 4 years we've been on the property.

Blaise,

Maybe it was some locust form of the grasshoppers that did the destruction?
I lost leaves of my young (2-3 years) fruit trees in the past - eaten by my sheep. It always slows the development of the tree. Small twigs will become branches. If they are also eaten then the growing season is lost.
I would actually lower the amount of water. With no leaves the plant can not transpire and expel the moisture. All my trees with missing leaves did recover. Destruction by sheep is much worse - they eat small twigs and branches, debark the trunk.

I had leafcutter ants totally strip down my yellow plum this spring. Now (midwinter) it has gotten new leaves and looks better.
I agree with Cristobal. You lose a year, but things recover (i've also had this happen with citrus).

We've had some bad grasshopper years here and you have my sympathies. It's horrible to see, because you know you can't stop them. hopefully this year their numbers reach crash levels and next year you have none.