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New England Gardening

small ?green catapillers exfoliating pine tree

16 years ago

Help please Last fall I planted a new garden bed with some evergreens a magnolia tree and some bulbs. I notice in the last few weeks the pine tree Pinus thumbergii was losing it's needles from the insde out, I thought it was the victum of the drought even though I've been giving the new beds and plants an inch of water a week.. Today I saw that it is literally covered with small very small green worm/catapillars they are esting the needles from the trunk out to the tips to the branches. SO How can I save this tree and how can I prevent them from spreading to my golden cypress, blue rug junipers, euyonamus (sp) & magnolia??

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Comment (1)

evonnestoryteller
16 years ago
Pine Sawfly

http://acreage.unl.edu/News/News/PineSawfly%20&%20Wilt.htm

Quote from the link:

Each year about the middle of May we begin to hear of huge numbers of dark green worms or larvae consuming pine needles in Washington County. Homeowners will look at their pines and find that a large portion of the pine trees needles have somehow disappeared. An insect called the pine sawfly is the culprit and can damage trees in a very short period of time. Fortunately, the sawfly will only eat the old needles. Thus, the new needles that are candling out will not be affected. For that reason, very few trees are actually killed.

The larvae of this insect are grayish green with two light stripes and a dark stripe on each side of the body. The legs and head are shiny black. Full grown larvae will be about one inch long. The larvae are gregarious and stay together in a cluster as they feed on the old needles of Scots, Austrian, Ponderosa and Mugo pines. The damage my be aesthetically displeasing, especially in Christmas Tree plantings, and growth of the tree may be stunted.

Sawfly larvae are easily killed by most broad spectrum insecticides, insect growth regulator, botanicals, or insecticidal soap or oil. There are also some reports that spraying with a high pressure hose knocking them off the tree is a very effective method of control. The most effective control is achieved when pesticide is applied early in the season when sawflies are young. After the sawflies reach one inch in length, they stop feeding and construct a pupae.

Defoliation by this insect pest generally lasts four to five weeks, usually peaking at the end of May. There is only one generation of sawflies per year.
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Thanks folks I tore the area up with a rotortiller down to rock and mixed in a bale of peatmoss last month before planting. There's nothing on top though to preserve moisture, so I'm thinking a bunch of cardboard seeing as it's temporary and easy. The second area I have in the mountains has a few pine trees, so I covered the ground around the few BBs i planted there as a test this year with brown needles, then whole green branches on top of that. I want to figure out a cheap irrigation system as a backup in case rain doesn't hack it. Maybe a big tarp in a wooden box frame to collect rain water? Swimming pool?? I made a nice gravity fed system at our smaller plot from an unused bathtub and garden hose attachments. I can fill it with canal water across the street via a pump I made from a washing machine pump running off 2 impact driver nicd packs. A real Macgyver build. The mountain location will be much larger and I don't know if a bathtub will hack it. Also, probably only rain water filling is practice there. Still, better than nothing.
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