Here Comes The Caterpillars!

[quads]

Today the leaves started coming out on the cherry trees, and right at the same time the darn caterpillars that eat them come too. The woods will be white with their webs in a week. They completely strip the cherry trees. The DNR says they don't do any lasting damage to them, but I beg to differ. I've seen many cherry trees that did not recover after the caterpillars are gone in May or so.

Also, the blueberries are budding. We'll have berries by the 4th of July if it doesn't freeze too hard and kill the blossoms.

There's firewood to be made in that thorny mess! One of my spots that I worked in today.

Cutting and splitting as I work my way down the trail.

This surplus stack is big enough.

Time to move along and start yet another stack.

I sure love that 30 year old family heirloom maul. I'm having it buried with me when I die. Not kidding, it's in my will.

 

[SmokinPiney]

Ahhh the tent catipillar! Your right about the DNR being wrong. Once a tree is stripped a few yrs in a row it has very little chance of recovering. Ya awtta see the oaks around here. We gypsy moths stripped them for 3 yrs in a row and now i'd say at least 50% of the oaks here are standing dead. They just can't take the abuse year after year.


Great pics though as always!

 

[sksmass]

Right, those tent caterpillars completely annihalated a couple generations of cherry trees on my property. The biggest ("granpda") trees survived but all the "teenagers" and "babies" less than ~12" dbh are now standing dead. New seedlings are starting to come up but are having to fight with invading Norway maple seedlings which are taking advantage of all the extra sunlight. Even if the baby cherries fight their way through, they won't be ready for firewood until long after I am dead.

 

[NH_Wood]

Love your Fiskars Quads! Cheers!

 

[Todd]

Nice pics as always Quads. I don't believe the DNR as well, seems like they screw up everything and have way too much power.

 

[bogydave]

Nice pics

I thought the caterpillars were the reason starlings were brought to the US. Then they found out the starlings
don't eat this caterpillar. Now starling & caterpillar problem. Wiped out many cherry trees where I lived in PA.

 

[hareball]

I'm with you on taking your maul with you. I'll have my dogs ashes in one hand and my go-to Penn reel that goes with me on just about every fishing trip. Clothing is to be blue jeans and a t-shirt still to be decided but no suit...no way.

 

[raybonz]

Those caterpillars have killed many trees here.. To deleaf the tree stresses it bigtime and has killed many in this area.. Cool quad too!!

Ray

 

[LLigetfa]

Ahhh the tent catipillar!

We have a variety of Forest Tent Caterpillar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_tent_caterpillar that sweeps through here sometimes. They arrive in biblical proportions, eating everything in their path. It's like a moving carpet on the ground. They had to sand the highway because it too slippery. I was washing them off the house with soapy water and hauling them away by the wheelbarrow load. They do kill a lot of trees if they get hit more than one year in a row.

 

[quads]

Those caterpillars are nasty things. I don't think anything eats them. I watched a chickadee picking on one once, but he didn't eat it. About the end of May, they all of a sudden end up covering the roads. After that, they're gone, except for their webs which stick to the trees for the rest of the year and slowly turn brown. Then we start all over again next year.

 

[Pinerat]

Quads, we used to get them bad at our old house. I would take the propane torch and hit the nest with a quick blast. It will kill or maim the caterpillars without harming the tree. BogyDave, the European Starling was first brought to North America by Shakespeare enthusiasts in the nineteenth century. He wanted to introduce every animal referenced in Shakespeare's works to North America.

 

[billb3]

Between all the different kind of tent caterpillars and gypsy moth caterpillars here the trees get rather stressed.

Some of the current oak decline is blamed on caterpillar defoliations, but the last several years their populations have been dwn significantly.
I've never seen the local wild cherries impacted by caterpillars.
The cyanide from the cherry leaves can make the little buggers toxic to any birds and horses that might eat them.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Quads, we used to get them bad at our old house. I would take the propane torch and hit the nest with a quick blast. It will kill or maim the caterpillars without harming the tree. BogyDave, the European Starling was first brought to North America by Shakespeare enthusiasts in the nineteenth century. He wanted to introduce every animal referenced in Shakespeare's works to North America.

+1

Every so often I'll take a propane torch to them. It takes quite a while to cover most of the land doing that but then we won't have them, or at least won't have many for several years. I did a few last year but not all so may have to do more this year.

 

[ChrisNJ]

Your a silly guy and gave me a good laugh with that maul sticking up in the pics, thanks.

 

[WoodPorn]

Has anyone heard or read if the tent / gypsymoth are supposed to be bad this year?

 

[quads]

Quads, we used to get them bad at our old house. I would take the propane torch and hit the nest with a quick blast. It will kill or maim the caterpillars without harming the tree. BogyDave, the European Starling was first brought to North America by Shakespeare enthusiasts in the nineteenth century. He wanted to introduce every animal referenced in Shakespeare's works to North America.

Near the yard I wait until evening or early morning when they are all cozy in their tent, then I just rip the web out of the tree, throw it on the ground, and squish them. Other than that, we've got a few hundred acres so I don't bother. As dry as it gets around here this time of year I'm afraid of fire anyway. They're all over the place, everywhere I go. Even miles from home. And they are bad every year.

 

[raybonz]

Quads, we used to get them bad at our old house. I would take the propane torch and hit the nest with a quick blast. It will kill or maim the caterpillars without harming the tree. BogyDave, the European Starling was first brought to North America by Shakespeare enthusiasts in the nineteenth century. He wanted to introduce every animal referenced in Shakespeare's works to North America.

+1

Every so often I'll take a propane torch to them. It takes quite a while to cover most of the land doing that but then we won't have them, or at least won't have many for several years. I did a few last year but not all so may have to do more this year.

You have trees left there?? Wow I figured those lil critters would starve to death there! LOL

Ray

 

[raybonz]

Between all the different kind of tent caterpillars and gypsy moth caterpillars here the trees get rather stressed.

Some of the current oak decline is blamed on caterpillar defoliations, but the last several years their populations have been dwn significantly.
I've never seen the local wild cherries impacted by caterpillars.
The cyanide from the cherry leaves can make the little buggers toxic to any birds and horses that might eat them.

We've been hammered by those damn caterpillars many times and some trees have croaked but last year was not bad.. Hope they stay away!!

Ray

 

[billb3]

Real trees grow in sand piles and cranberry bogs ?


caterpillars don't eat pine

 

[raybonz]

Real trees grow in sand piles and cranberry bogs ?


caterpillars don't eat pine

Wish they did eat pine, white pine in particular! Pines love growing in sandy soil plus oaks do too.. Plenty of trees in front of my house oaks,maples, pine, birch some small hollies plus other stuff.. Lots of water in Carver!! For some reason I have lots of good sized crabapples too...

Ray

 

[daveswoodhauler]

I remember as a kid in the late 1970's they were so bad one year they were literaly dropping out of the trees when you walked and would land in your hair, back, etc...would really freak my sister out.
My dad and all the neighbors put tinfoil around each tree, and coat the tinfoil with this really sticky stuff....he would come from work each day, get the propane torch out and burn those farkhers right off the tree.
We have some time to time now, but back in the late 70's thatyear it was so bad folks were using Umbrellas to keep them off them.
I do like quads does....just rip that next out of the tree and smash it into the ground.

 

[WoodPorn]

Real trees grow in sand piles and cranberry bogs ?


caterpillars don't eat pine

That's because Pine causes cancer, and chimney fires, and the caterpillers know better! ;-)

 

[LLigetfa]

I've seen Spruce attacked by the Spruce Budworm.

 

[quads]

There is some kind of worm that attacks jackpine too. It killed a lot of them 10 years ago. And also something that kills the tops of the white pine when it grows out in the open, but not when it's shaded.

 

[billb3]

There is some kind of worm that attacks jackpine too. It killed a lot of them 10 years ago. And also something that kills the tops of the white pine when it grows out in the open, but not when it's shaded.

I had to spray for those when I tried growing Christmas trees.
Pine, spruce, fir, whatever that bug was it loved the tops. You'd end up with two tops if you didn't get back the next year to trim one out.
They seemed to have population blooms, too.
Just when you thought you killed them all and decide not to spray, you'd lose a bunch of tree tops again.