Gypsy Moth Caterpillers
 Gypsy Moth Caterpillers have taken over in our area
Our yard, deck, driveway is all one big slinky 
I'm praying for a heatwave (hopefully it will reduce the population here by a few million). Ron, how are you doing in your area??????????? |
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| None over here... they go in cycles. I had a bad year a bunch of years ago. |
I didn't see any gypsy moths yet but I did see a fishfly Hope it's not a bad year for them  |
Ron wrote: None over here... they go in cycles. I had a bad year a bunch of years ago.
and Bestdogs x4 Good for you guys ! 
Many towns here are over run. I'm fighting droves of them trying to get in the house. They walked over across the yard today and hundreds of them are climbing our stable (same with the house) Good grief--there goes sitting outside for summer
I'm afraid to ask where we are in the cycle. Next year they will probably move the house to another location !!!!!!!!!!  |
What do they look like Zahra? I saw a pretty big moth, dead already, in my yard yesterday. I'm not sure what it is.  |
| One image just doesn't do them justice, so here's a whole page of Gypsy Moth Caterpillar pictures.
http://images.google.com/images?sourcei ... a=N&tab=wi Yum. |
Oh THOSE things!! I HATE those little buggers!!  Every year they infest my Persimmon tree. I try, very hard, to get their nests down, but it is almost impossible as they get so high up in the tree.
Poor Zahra!! How do you kill them? |
| Do the caterpillers destroy trees? I hope not. Is there anything that can be sprayed to kill them?
I refuse to look at any pictures or links posted by Ron.  It's sure to gross me out! |
| I think they can destroy the tree, Paula, if left untreated. They do eat the vegetation when they "hatch". I don't know what to spray to kill them. |
| We had some of those nests in one of the bushes here.....we took the blow torch to the nest....that worked...just have to be careful to not burn the bush. Havent seen any since. |
Ha! I'd burn the whole tree down if I tried that!   |
| So far we're infested with frogs... |
| I thought you were talking about gypsy’s (people) until I saw Ron’s picture |
| Gypsy moth populations are cyclic. So where they are bad this year, the population will be down next year. Also, trees can withstand a lot of damage if they are healty before attack and the attack isn't major each year there after.
As to what to spray, the safest is a product called Bt...Bacillus thuringensis. It's a naturally occuring soil bacterium. It only kills caterpillars! So it's safe around birds, dogs, people, etc. Two problems tho: Application is tough if your trees are tall and the product breaks down in the sunlight after a week and needs reapplication. Some newer formulations are lasting longer, thankfully. Here's a site.......there are many........but this is good as it discusses egg masses your should be looking for around your property: http://www.ent.msu.edu/gypsyed/docs/control.html |
| They are jus AWFUL HERE this year, The Horticulture Department @ Cornell University is saying that it is due to the mild winter. Our yard is creepy crawling with them. they have chewed up my roses and my new lilacs They recommend using insecticide "sevin", which I haven't done because it is harmful to animal.
They will only live to chew for about a 2 week period and then will go into the moth stage before laying eggs again for next year. NEXT spring early in the spring we will have to be especially vigalante about destroying the nests (the big white things in the trees). I had seen them this years, more than normal, but had not thought to destroy them. By the time I realized what was happening they had hatched. If the new nests are not killed next year will be even worse unless it is a very bad winter. I also have some really wide stickey tape stuff that I have taped all around the base of my deck to try to keep them from crawling up on the deck and chewing up my potted plants, I have hundreds of dollars of potted flowers on my deck I have to strip the tape off and replace it almost every day it gets so full of the buggers!!!!!!!!
Last night I was picking them off a little lilac bush that I planted last year, the lilac is only about 2 feet high and I picked off 120 caterpillars |
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