Current Stuff From Dec 6 2007-March 31, 2008

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Current Stuff Spring ... Arpil 1, 2008 until cankerworms have stopped eating our trees for the season. See Current Stuff Spring

March 31, 2008 Monday

As you can see I have not posted since late February.  This past weekend I checked my traps since I had been out of town. I saw two very small green worms which I am sure were worms that had hatched from egg clusters that were depostied on the tar paper of one of my traps. That coincides with last year in that I saw dozens of cankerwomrs on March 25th 2007.

What this means is that the worms are hatching all over town in the tops of the trees. They will feed on the young buds and when they have gotten all they get, the will come down the tree.  Two years ago on the 18th of April 2006, they were defoliateing the trees very quickly. I thought the drought might cause them to come out later, but nature wants them to come out just as the leaves are forming. In other words, we are right on schedule.

As stated earlier, the city will spray.... probably late next week. Directly below I have posted a message that I wrote for the MPHA newletter. It explains the need for applying more tanglefoot.

March 30, 2008
 
Residents of Myers Park
 
Our MPHA neighborhood newsletter will be distributed shortly, however, the cankerworm problem needs attention now. Some of the small green worms have hatched and are starting to feed on the trees. The City is planning to spray the trees soon, and there is an article in our newsletter that you should read now.
 
The article below will appear in the newsletter.
 
Kindest regards,
 
          Tom Masters        
          President/MPHA  
 
Cankerworms Spring 2008 .........
 
Reapply Tanglefoot
 
If the tanglefoot on your cankerworm traps is dry or your traps are damaged by
squirrels, you need to reapply Tanglefoot. The information below goes into more details.
 
Charlotte Will Spray for Cankerworm
 
A contractor for the city of Charlotte will be spraying approximately 63,000 acres for the fall cankerworm in early April. That is over ten times the number of acres that the city sprayed in 1998. It will take from four to seven days of decent weather, and the odds of having little wind and no rain for that seven-day period in the early spring are not good.
 
What that means is that certainly aerial spraying will help, but if you have trees with cankerworm traps that have captured a large number of cankerworms this fall, then you need to be alert. If the traps are not installed properly, they do little good. In our opinion, the infestation was erratic this season. Some people said they had never seen it as bad and others saw little cankerworm activity. Probably because of the drought, the cankerworm migration started about four weeks later this year than in 2007.
 
We have observed that the traps that are made with tarpaper and have Tanglefoot applied in a wide band of approximately 6 inches and ¼ of an inch thick work best. Even if you have traps that are installed properly, you will need to reapply some Tanglefoot to the existing band. The sticky stuff on any trap tends to dry out during the winter and with insects, leaves and dust, the traps loose their effectiveness.
 
More Bugs Are Coming
 
In late March and early April, the cankerworm eggs that are the trees will hatch. The young caterpillars will feed on young buds and leaves and descend from the tree. They parachute to the ground or crawl down the trunk looking for more food to eat. Once on the ground they will start looking for food, and they do not care for grass. The cankerworms start crawling up your other trees and shrubs. The caterpillars will even climb up telephone poles and the side of your house. Last season we saw trees where thousands of cankerworm caterpillars crawled up trees and defoliated the trees. Although the defoliation does not kill the tree outright, it weakens the trees and along with the drought, we have been having, we expect to see an increase in dead and severely weakened larger trees.
 
The Bug Barrier traps lose their effectiveness when there are a large number of insects for a number of reasons. Squirrels have become very fond of the white batting material and pull the batting out from the trap and use it to line their nest. Squirrels also will chew on the traps sometimes eating the trapped insects. Lastly, the sticky material inside the trap dries out quickly with dust and does not cover a large enough area to capture insects in a heavy infestation. The sticky area on the inside of the trap is only two to three inches wide. 
 
The good news is that one can take Tanglefoot and apply it to the outside of the Bug Barrier trap and still capture a large number of the caterpillars this spring.  The tarpaper trap is likely to have leaves, male and female cankerworm moths, and dust in it. In addition, the Tanglefoot tends to be absorbed by the tarpaper since it has been on the trees for four months.  It is necessary to put another inch of so of Tanglefoot above the existing Tanglefoot band.
Reapply Tanglefoot
 
We recommend replenishing the Tanglefoot band anytime after late March. Last year we started seeing heavy defoliation about the 12th of April. You will not see insects crawling up the trees or heavy defoliation until about a week or so after the insects first emerge and the City sprays the trees.
 
Plan to water and fertilize your trees and the city trees that are between the curb and your sidewalk later this spring. Any trees with restricted root systems will have suffered more than freestanding trees because of the drought.
jack mcneary

For alll practical purposes, the fall cankerworm infestation on my tree, and I suspect all trees in the Charlotte, has stopped.  I do not plan to enter information on this site until the middle of March when I will advise people to check their traps and apply Tanglefoot if needed.  It will be required on all traps unless you had a very minor experience. Remember this is what the caterpillars looked like on one tree last year where a person put duct tape up on the tree backwords. This is the second part of the infestation that we originally ignored in the early years of trying to stop this insect.

Sat 23=cw=0, Sun 24 =cw=1, Mon 25 =cw=0. Tues 26=cw=0, Wed 27=cw=0

February 22, 2008 Friday

Every day the numbers of trapped female cankerworms are dropping. I have attached a few more photos of what does not work. A heavy infestation will cover four to six inches of Tanglefoot. So if you only put a two inch band of sticky material, it is not going to trap all the worms. Here is an example of the Bug barrier which in this case has about 1 1/2 inches of sticky stuff on the inside of the plastic. Today it was dried up and not sticky at all. Notice a few worms on the outside of the trap. Lots of insects have been captured in the upper trap in the Tanglefoot. The photo to the right is a similar trap, but the Bug Barrier has not been installed properly. Note the bulge of the batting material on the right side of the photo.

Below on the left is another tree where the insects can be seen near the ball point pen. They are on the outside of the trap moving up to the second trap with the Tanglefoot. You can see that lots of insects have been captured in the second trap above the Bug Barrier trap.

The photo to the right show a big tree with a band that is entirely too small. Also the Tanglefoot is not very thick and this type of insulation material absorbs the Tanglefoot quicker than any other product I have observed. This is a very large and beautiful tree. Whoever installed this trap did a disservice to the client.

The photo below is one of the experimental traps I put up in my own yard. About two weeks ago I added additional Tanglefoot above the original band. The older band is about 4 inches wide and I suspect that a few cankerworms got past the band. So far I have not caught any in the newer, recently applied Tanglefoot, but I should have installed it earlier. This plastic wrapping works pretty well and is certainly easier to install around the tree than the tarpaper. I did not time it, but I’ll bet it took about one minute to wrap the plastic and put in a few staples. I also used some extra plastic wrap to stuff in a few voids to keep the cankerworms from crawling up underneath the wrap. I had to be a little careful putting on the Tanglefoot so that I did not rip holes in the wrap. You can buy a roll of this or similar wrap for about $10.00 and could wrap dozens of trees with one roll.

Thur 1 4 =cw=10, Fri 15 =cw=8, Sat 16 =cw=18, Sun 17 =cw=10, Mon 18 =cw=9. Tues 19=cw=4, Wed 20=cw=4, Thur 21= cw=5 Fri 22 =cw=0

February 13, 2008 Wednesday

Today is rainy and about 45 degrees F. in the morning.  There were only two cankerworms on the trap and the rates have been declining for a number of days. I think the migration is about done. I suppose many of you have noticed that the worms seem to come up on certain sides of the tree. The first cankerworms came up on the southeast side which would have been the warmest side of my particular tree. Later the opposite side of the tree had the most insects. I have observed this for a number of years.

As stated earlier, I check the trees daily but do not necessarily enter the data daily. In general, I make some addition to this site once a week.  I will continue to do that and will certainly keep an eye on things in the later part of March.
 

Tues 12=cw=17  , Wed 13=cw=2

February 11, 2008 Monday

Below is a photo of a willow oak with two bands on it. I illustrates why I do not like the Bug Barrier. Certainly it works sometimes, but as this photo shows, squirrels really can tear them up. They seem to have learned and are teaching their young ones how to get the batting material out for their nest which seems to be the case in this photo because there does not seem to be much cankerworm activity. I have seen them break off the plastic to get at the insects that are stuck. They have been observed eating the cankerworm insects that are stuck to the trap.

I am often puzzled why people put out more than one trap. In this case I suppose the homeowner paid someone to put up the Bug Barrier trap, and when the city came by they installed the other. That does not explain why I will see two Bug Barrier traps together. There is a lot more labor with the Tanglefoot and maybe the extra Bug Barrier material is less than the labor to put up the Tanglefoot trap.

If the squirrels get the traps two or three would not work.

******************

Directly below is the the last few days count for cankerworms. Cw stands for cankerworm as I suppose anyone can see. I wrote down Fri and Sat information on something that I left home. Will add to it shortly.

Fri Jan 8=cw=17, Sat Jan 9=cw=27, Sun Jan 10=cw=35  ,  Mon Jan 11=cw=26,

February 7, 2008 Thursday

I do not spend all my time worrying about cankerworms and post this information once a week, usually over the weekend. I also do not send this link out to all the people who could get it. Our neighborhood mailing list goes to at least 875 people plus I have a pretty extensive list of people interested in tree issues.
 

I have a short list of people who I do notify and can put anyone’s name on it who wants to be included. Just drop me an e-mail.

Tue. Feb 5 = 24, Wed Feb 6 = 12, Thur Feb 7 = 26

February 4, 2008 Monday

Lots of worms out there!! Everyday, as I drive up and down the streets I see traps that have lots of insects on them. I think the season just got started late. I suppose the drought could have had a lot to do with that. The count is as follows

 Wed Jan 30 = 52, Thurs Jan 31 = 26, Fri Feb 1 = 38, Sat Feb 2 = 26, Sun Feb 3 = 47, Mon Feb 4 =97,

I think the cankerworms are on the downswing. Last year they were finished after the first week in February. After they stop crawling, I will compare last years count with this years and post it.

If your tree looks like the photo below, you had better get some more Tanglefoot on it. This tree has lots of insects and I am sure that the leaves are because of a leaf blower. One way to tell is that there is a lot of other smaller debris and leaf chips on the Tanglefoot.  I suggest that when the band is installed that the Tanglefoot be started on the lower portion of the tarpaper band so you can easily add to the band above the old Tanglefoot.

January 29, 2008 Tuesday

It is time to inspect those traps.

Things have picked up a great deal. Today I found 202 female cankerworms on the main trap at my residence. Also I installed a second trap in the back yard as an experiment. I used the plastic tree wrap that looks like Saran Wrap and found it very easy to apply. It took a fraction of the time to install as the tar paper did. I also put a rather thin band of Tanglefoot on the trap and had to be careful that I did not rip the plastic material.

The greenish picture below shows that trap before I applied more Tanglefoot. The picture directly below is the main tree in my front yard which shows the narrow band of Tanglefoot that is almost filled in some places with dead insects. I need to apply a little more Tanglefoot above that band to stop the insects. I actually caught one female cankerworm today that was above the band.

I have looked at a lot of traps around the neighborhood ,and many are overwhelmed with insects. Quite a few other traps have very few insects.

First photo shows how the male cankerworms and the mashed females have just about filled up the band of Tanglefoot. I left a good bit of tar paper above the band so I could add more Tanglefoot. That time has arrived, and I will need to add more Tanglefoot now and again in late March or early April.

 The Photo below show the back yard tree. The original Tanglefoot band is only about two to three inches wide and the insects have filled it up. I am sure some insects are escaping and going up the tree. In fact if you look carefully    xx    below the two xxs you can see her. In general, I think the band of Tanglefoot should be 6” wide and 1/4 inch thick. Over the season, it still tends to dry out as you will see in the next photo. (below). Tanglefoot does not dry out as much on the Green Saran Wrap.

Below is a Photo of a tree with pipe insulation. It has really absorbed the Tanglefoot. The tar paper will also absorb the Tanglefoot but less so than the pipe insulation. The band is also very narrow and to me this installation was just wasted effort. 

The last photo below shows a bug barrier trap that was working, but now ceases to do the job. The trap was installed properly, but there is limited surface area for trapping the worms. Since many trees seem to have minor infestations, this type of trap will work on those trees. If there is an abundance of cankerworms, they will crawl over the insects and go up the outside of the trap.

I have seen these traps with a lot of leaves on the underside also where they were blow upward by a leaf blower.

The good news is that if you have a Bug Barrier trap that is being overwhelmed, you can take some Tanglefoot and place it on the outside exposed side of the trap and catch female cankerworms.

Here is a count of the cankerworms since January 21st.

January 22 =7, Jan 23=8, Jan 24= 171, Jan 25=50, Jan 26= 67, Jan 27=57, Jan 28=123, Jan 29=202,

Bug Barrier Trap totally full of insects. They are climbing over the insects and moving up the outside of the trap.

January 21, 2008 Monday

I have done a little comparison from last season to this one.
At the same time last year we had a total of 5204 female cankerworms captured. 
On the 21st of this year, we have captured only 1394 insects. That is a difference of 3810 insects.

We were about a month later getting the migration than last year and the counts are down every day as compared to last year. In the fall of 2006, December had about 1500 insects and January approximately 3000 insects.

The overall timeframe for this migration is about 103 days, but it really slows down for a week or so at both ends of the cycle.
Last year the bulk of the insects went up the trees in some quantity for some 63 days. So far this year we have had 40 days overall and 32 days when have seen some evidence of insects but no where near the numbers as last year.

 Last year the there were three days with an exceptional number of insects 482, 506, 718. This year the three highest numbers are 129, 289, and 361.

Below are the recent numbers. 

Monday Jan 14=22, Tuesday Jan 15=32, Wednesday Jan16=26, Thursday Jan 17=116 (snow in am), Friday Jan 18=49, Saturday Jan 19=23 (some wet snow and rain), Sunday Jan 20= 18 (very cold), Monday Jan 21= 7 (20 degrees F.)

January 14, 2008 Monday

The count on Saturday Jan 12 was 13 female cankerworms and Sunday Jan 13, was 361. This is more like what I would suspect now that we are into days with about 45 to 50 degree highs.

I think tomorrow will also be a high count. Weather prediction is that we will have rain later today.

January 11, 2008 Friday

This week has been strange. The daily counts were down a lot. 

Jan 8 (tues.) = 58, Jan 9 (wed.) = 25, Jan 10 (thurs) = 15, Jan 11 (fri)= 7

All around town the counts are down, however, there are a few area where there is a lot of activity. The willow oaks between the tennis court and sugar creek in Freedom Park have lots of cankerworms. As I have commented before if the band of Tanglefoot is too narrow, the worms will crawl over other stuck insects and go right up the tree. In this case look at the female cankerworms that are visible above the band. There is no telling how many have already crawled up the tree. I could see about six insects at the time I took the photograph..  The yellow pen is aimed at one. In this case there are both leaves and cankerworms filling the Tanglefoot. The amount of Tanglefoot on the band is not wide enough.

While I am showing some photos, here are a few others. This is a close up of stuck cankerworms but notice the eggs that are laid on the willow oak leaf. I hear that the average egg mass will have about 200 eggs in it. Normally, they are laid up in the tops of the trees but I counted close to 300 eggs a couple of years ago. It was an egg mass laid on the tarpaper.

And Lastly, Check out this double dogwood.  How is this supposed to work ?????  When I first saw this I thought somebody missed the boat. However when I got around to photographing the tree, I looked under the wrap and sure enough there is lots of batting material crammed up in the void between the two trunks. This shows one not to judge too hastily.

January 7, 2008 Monday

I think the very cold weather and a rainy day slow the worms up. I expected a lot of worms on Friday and Saturday and did not see many. Then on Sunday, it was like they were just waiting and standing in line to crawl up the tree.

Jan 5=2, Jan 6, (Sunday) = 289, Jan 7= 129.

It will be interesting to watch the next few days when it is supposed to be in the 70’s with some rain.

January 4, 2008

We have had enough cold, but the worms are very erratic. Lots of rain does slow them down, but it will be interesting to see what happens since we should have some warm days coming up.

Dec 29=5, Dec 30=0 (rainy day), Dec 31=0, Jan 1=63, Jan 2=25, Jan3=5, Jan 4=0

December 28, 2007

December 19, 2007

It appears the cankerworms are finally on the move. December 17th there was no activity. Yesterday the 18th there were four cankerworms and today (Wednesday) my trap had ten female cankerworms in the Tanglefoot.  Last year I observed the first female cankerworm on November 16th, and the annual migration really picked up by the first of December. We know that it takes a hard freeze to bring the cankerworms out. Earlier this week when the temperature dropped down into the low 30’s for a couple of days seemed to do the job. Check the graph posted on December 11th below to see what the cankerworms did some years ago. The starting date which was not marked on the chart was about the November 25th.

Why is this important? When these insects first started chewing on our trees we did not know what to expect. Literature stated that a heavy infestation was 30 or 40 female cankerworms during the season. We were getting over 8000 on one tree.  Defoliation for three years in a row plus the drought will do serious harm making the tree vulnerable to other ailments. It is probable that we will see quite a few trees die this season. It is too early to tell.

The purpose of logging this information daily was to see the time frame that the cankerworms needed to go up the trees and lay their eggs. Also the number of insects is important because there are parts of town that unaffected and others where the trees have been clobbered for quite a few years.

In general the peak migration has been December 25th. Expect it to be late this season. Last year there were approximately 1500 insects captured in December and 3000 in January.

If you have not gotten bands up on your trees do it immediately. The leaves are gone and each insect that gets up the tree can lay approximately 200 eggs.

Go back to the cankerworm report for other details. Call me if you feel you need to 704-618-6214 jack mcneary

December 16, 2007

We had about an inch of rain last night, the first in a long time. There were three cankerworms on the trap on Saturday the 15th of December and one Sunday morning. Below is a photo I took yesterday of one of the female cankerworms. I took her from the trap before she got into the Tanglefoot and had her pose on a twig.

December 11, 2007

Still very little activity. I have found 2 female cankerworms on one tree and one on another. I do not expect to see the migration start until it cools down again. To have it 80 degrees for two days in a row in December is really extreme. For what it is worth, last year I captured one cankerworm on November 16th 2006 and a total of 26 for the month of November. In December it was a different story in that I captured 1987 and in January 3901. In February there were 27 insects trapped.  Later in the spring there were thousands trying to go up the tree and I estimated there were at lease 1000 insects on the tree. Had those insects been allowed to go all the way up unimpeded, who knows how many others would have followed.

Below is a graph of the migration in 1997/98. In general, the peak has been around Christmas. This year I expect it to be later. This chart was made after the migration. At the time I did not know that we would have such a problem with the cankerworms. I would have recorded the information more accurately. Nevertheless, the peak number of insects on a single day was over 120 which is pretty significant.

December 8, 2007

Below is not a great picture of a cankerworm. This was the second one for the year and has some Tanglefoot on her legs. This should give you an idea of how big the insect is since the photo is taken with the insect on a Sharpie marking pen.

December 7. 2007

One of my neighbors said that he had about 20 cankerworms on his trap. I went to look this morning at about 8:30 and did not find any. I did find this insect which looks to me like a leaf hopper. Note that it has red eyes.

December 6, 2007
I saw the first female cankerworm stuck in the trap on the big willow oak in my front yard early this morning. Every year the sunny side of the tree is the first place I notice cankerworms. Now with the recent wind most of the leaves are gone, and it is time to get the Tanglefoot on the traps. We are supposed to have some warm weather so that will make it easier to apply the Tanglefoot on the traps. It is sticky stuff so using disposable rubber gloves is a help.

I talked with Steve Ketner who is with the tree department of the city. The city is banding public trees in the major streets that are over 24 inches in diameter. That means that if you have smaller trees in your planting strip that you care about you will need to band them or hire someone to do that.

Make sure that you do not band trees that are not affected. (list of trees that cankerworms like)

Banding by the companies contracted by the city will begin early next week.

There are five companies that are banding 5700 trees for the city. The companies are as follows:

1. Arborguard           (Myers Park)
   Davey               (Dilworth)
   Clark’s Tree Service    (Eastover)
   Neff Tree            (Chantilly)
   Asplundh             (West Side) (Wesley Heights)

This is the beginning.