Who else is looking at bare trees? Gypsy Moths doing a number here...

[GLyford]

Pretty much our whole end of the county looks like it is the first days of spring and not the longest days of summer.

Anyone else here under siege?

 

[mjw357]

They are spraying (with crop duster planes) in certain counties here in Ohio, trying to break the reproductive cycle.

 

[JerryK]

We had tent caterpillars bad for years in our cherry trees, and about five years ago the forest tent caterpillars were bad in the Sugar Maples. Sounded like rain from all the guano falling from the big trees. Finally there was some type of fly that grew in population by planting their eggs into the caterpillar and they mostly died out. Bats were thick from eating all the bounty in the moth stage. Then the caterpillars went away and we were engulfed with heavy honeydew last year. My white barn roof is still mostly coated with the black moldy honeydew from last year. This year, the honeydew is still bad, and the caterpillars are going nuts again... but not to the defoliation stage yet. Seems like Ma Nature is all out of wack...

 

[Ford850]

The Cicadas are wiping out my trees. If we get rain soon, they might send out new growth to recover later, but many of my smaller oaks have lost over 50% of the branches now and the Cicadas are still covering them. They are hitting everything from fruit tress, hardwoods, ornamentals, but the oaks are getting hit the worst. It's sad to see these trees, approximately 15 years old, getting decimated. If Gypsy Moths come in too, wow.

 

[Inspector507]

They are spraying (with crop duster planes) in certain counties here in Ohio, trying to break the reproductive cycle.

They sprayed all morning over Columbus.

 

[GLyford]

Oaks around here are hit the worst. We only have one, a red on our property, and it's looking pretty mournful. Next worst are our apple trees. Worst is the one that was girdled by a rabbit two winters ago, but had been somehow hanging on. No strength left to fight. The others at least are showing some green here and there. The birches are about 1/3 to half gone, and the maples barely touched except way at the top. Completely ignored the peaches...they have a hard enough time this far north anyway, maybe they were sorry for them. Our pines look fine but a friend two towns over said theirs were looking sad, but recovering after spray.

Looks like they have stopped eating and are starting to form mats of fiber to turn into moths, so this is probably out last chance to hit them and break up the cycle as much as we can.

Maybe now things can leaf back out.

We have had the tent caterpillars from time to time too, though come to think of it not lately. I guess we were just due for something.

 

[tallyho8]

The webworm caterpillars are devastating my pecan trees. They can strip a 50' tall tree bare in a couple of weeks and leave the ground black with their droppings.

 

[Old Guy in Tenn]

We had serious gypsy moth issues in Michigan 10-15 years ago, but don't even see them now. Some virus or bacteria eventually comes in and sets up shop, killing them as the caterpillar before they can morph into the moths. When the disease is present you will see the caterpillars hanging from the bark on the tree, in an inverted V, and the moth decimation will be over.

The caterpillars apparently move from the ground up into the trees and back to the ground, and get the disease while on the ground. Have friends who gathered soil from a forest where the disease was present, and scattered it around their own trees. Supposedly speeds up the caterpillar-killing disease by seeding it into new areas.

When you see the "mats" tear them off. Break the cycle. You can make a surprisingly big difference. The caterpillars like to hide under cover on the bark. Wrap a loose strip of cloth or carpet around the tree and leave it for a couple of days, and you will probably find caterpillars or pupae under it.

 

[Zerk]

We had tent caterpillars bad for years in our cherry trees, and about five years ago the forest tent caterpillars were bad in the Sugar Maples. Sounded like rain from all the guano falling from the big trees. Finally there was some type of fly that grew in population by planting their eggs into the caterpillar and they mostly died out. Bats were thick from eating all the bounty in the moth stage. Then the caterpillars went away and we were engulfed with heavy honeydew last year. My white barn roof is still mostly coated with the black moldy honeydew from last year. This year, the honeydew is still bad, and the caterpillars are going nuts again... but not to the defoliation stage yet.

Seems like Ma Nature is all out of wack...

Actually just seems like natures cycle to me.

 

[DrRod]

We had major damage from gypsy moths around 1998 - 2001. The mountains looked tan in some areas given all the dead branches. But they started spraying with some sort of oil and got control of it. I saw them using a crop duster last month on Blacklog Mountain, which is most welcome.