UMass Extension Landscape Message December 5, 2014

9 years ago

Happy Holidays and welcome to the final Landscape Message for 2014, thanks for a great season! The message will be on winter hiatus in January and February. New messages for the 2015 growing season will begin in March. To receive immediate notification when the next Landscape Message update is posted, be sure to join our e-mail list.

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Promising news (for Wellesley at least) from Southeast Region (Hanson) report:

"Pests/Problems: Winter moths began to emerge in early November with heavy emergence beginning around Nov. 20 and continuing on warm nights throughout November into December, especially Nov. 24th and 25th and December 1, when daytime temperatures were in the low 60's and nighttime temperatures were in the 40's. Winter moths usually continue to emerge into early January anytime the temperatures are above freezing. As of Nov. 25th, female winter moth numbers were very high (865) at the Hanson, MA winter moth research site, compared with the Wellesley, MA site (16). It should continue to be interesting to see what the winter moth female final emergence number is in Wellesley MA, as UMass Entomologists Dr. Joe Elkinton and George (Jeff) Boettner recently published in an article. In that article they reported that at their "Cyzenis albicans release site in Wellesley, MA, parasitism of winter moth caterpillars has now been in the 30-40% range for the past two years and population densities of winter moth at the release site in Wellesley are now far lower than at any of the other sites where we have been monitoring winter moth densities over the past few years." According to Dr. Elkinton, "we are very excited that Cyzenis albicans is taking off like gangbusters in Wellesley and has now spread over an area at least 2 miles across with high levels of parasitism of winter moth." Stay tuned."
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-Claire

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Comments (2)

Persimmons
9 years ago
Hallelujah about the parasitism of the winter moths. It's a shame that the only way to successfully combat them is by introducing a predatory species. Are there any other species that could be negatively affected by introducing Cyzenis albicans?
claireplymouth z6b coastal MA
Original Author
9 years ago
As far as I've read, Cyzenis albicans pretty much only affects the winter moth.
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Ã¢ÂÂItÃ¢ÂÂs a difficult and lengthy undertaking to understand the dynamics of a population,Ã¢ÂÂ Elkinton explains, Ã¢ÂÂbut itÃ¢ÂÂs very important to study the natural enemy and its host range. This fly is very specific to the winter moth - it wonÃ¢ÂÂt even attack other kinds of inchworm caterpillars,Ã¢ÂÂ he adds. Even the Bruce spanworm, a native species, which has hybridized with winter moths in some parts of the state but has its own set of predators keeping it in check, seems immune to Cyzenis albicans.

Finding Protection in a Predator
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It scares me a little that the native Bruce spanworm is hybridizing with the winter moth, but it's encouraging that there are native predators that attack the Bruce spanworm.

Claire
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