Tent catipillars

[SPIKER]

Hi All:

well I been busy as heck latley and have seen a ton of the nest bulding bugs on my place mostly in the cherry & walnuts.  BUT I also got some now residing in my pear trees and these are only 10' high and possably not able to withstand a major attack.   what is the best method of getting rid of these buggers?

  (I call them tent cattipilars and they build a large nest made of white silk, they are 1+" long adults lay thousands of small round eggs inside the nests.   they can strip the branches clean in a few weeks surrounding the nests.)   

Usually I have cut & burned the branches right after cutting and or used a weed burner to get them right on the tree.   this year there seems to be a bumper crop of these dang things and right in the midst of my fruiting trees they have gotten out of hand.   they have stripped many of my plums barren, working on the cherry and now the pears.   I have plenty of plums and the jap bettels helpd remove those leaves.

what can I do to stop these from continueing eating the young (just planted this year trees) with out cutting the hole top of new growth out?   Is there a good spray available to general public?  does it have to penetrate the nests to get em,   what is best time of day/night to cut & remove branches of larger trees that have an infestation?

thanks in advantce.

mark M :-[

[sawguy21]

Good luck dealing with those DanG things. I don't have any answers.

[Phorester]

Unfortunately there's nothing that can be sprayed this time of year.  As you mentioned, it would have to penetrate the web, and no spray will do that.  Even if you could the caterpillars are too big to be killed with a properly mixed insecticide.

Both eastern tent caterpiliars, that make the little white webs in the crotches of cherrys and apples, and the fall webworm, that makes the big brown nests in trees, have to be sprayed starting in eary spring at budbreak.  You can use Sevin, Malathion, Dimilin, Foray, Mimic, probably others.  But only at budbreak.  Spraying now would have no effect and would be wasting chemicals.

Cut the branches early morning since most of the carterpilliars will be in them then and not out feeding. Also, the eastern tent caterpilliars lay their eggs in black lumps along the smaller branches.  You can prune these off in winter and burn or otherwise destroy them.

[SPIKER]

phorester:

thanks for advice so far, these I rarely see any LARGE catipillars, mostly just very small black egg like items, maybe excrement?   they have almost totally wrapped up my (for the first time this year) fruiting pear tree which is maybe 12' high and only has a few trimmed/pruned branches.   somehow they have managed to litterly pull the branches together and silked around them.   :mad:  >:(   anyhow the cherrys will get an early morning trimming and straight to the burn pile with them.   my biggest problem is the neobors trees are infested and seem to be moving to mine now.   next year I'll start spraying but once I do I fear they will simply move back over to the un-protected areas.   last year they almost wipped out my eldiberry bushes & plumbs.

I have also seen what I think were adult ones marching in single file up/down some of the pin oaks in the yard, promtly were removed & dealt with with extreme prejudice. ;)

I think I'll be doing that with the others as well.

I might also mention that the most hard hit pear was one I began my grafting practice on, and have had 3 so-far good results on. :(
Mark M

"edit in"  I forgot to mention I was thinking that I could use a propane torch to burn away the nest very easy, then possably spray quickly afterwards with a water based insecticide with a dish soap mixed in with base wihch I believe will help destroy the webbing as well as creat a un-pallatable effect on the branches/leaves which are probably within weeks of the first frost the way the weather is going this year.   I will try & get a fwe photos of the trees as they are now.   just been very busy getting stuff done in last weeks of ok temps that I didn't notice the problem and it happened over a couple days !

MarkM

[gary]

I used to burn the nests on the tree with a propane torch. It worked for me. You could try this mix 1/4 cup dish soap and 1/4 cup lemon ammonnia with 1/2 gallon of nicotine water(I soak chewing tobacco for a few days in the water). You can then use a sprayer on your hose to spray with. I don't know if it will work on the catipillers or not but it has worked for me on a lot of different types of bugs.

[Larry]

Spiker,
We have walnut trees along our drive.  Just to keep the ugly under control, at the first sign of a worm...usually bout August first I spray.  Sevin is over the counter and will get em but has no staying power.  Week in good weather...couple of days in rainy times.  This year I sprayed twice and had very few problems.

Lorsban will also get em and much more dependable...of course anything that works the EPA puts on the restricted use list.  Happened with Lorsban few years ago...course it might be cheaper to get a pro if you have a bad problem.

Ok...now I have a question for you guys.  When I bought Sevin this year Walmart also had a systemic insecticide labeled for webworms.  Can't remember the name but the directions iffen I remember right said to use it in the spring.  Is this an option and how good of control does it give?

[Phorester]

SPIKER,
When I said the spray wouldn't work on big caterpillars, what I really meant was the mature ones.  The mature size is dependent on what caterpillar it is.  Eastern tent caterpillars are about 2 to 3 inches long when mature, fall webworm cats. are about 1 inch long.  Here in my area they are already done for the year.  Both are laying eggs, the ETC creates the black lumps of eggs on tiny branches pencil size and smaller.  Those are the ones you can prune off this winter.  The fall webworm lays them on the undersides of leaves. When the leaves fall off, the eggs overwinter on the ground.  So if you can do one thorough raking this fall when all the leaves under the infested trees are on the ground and burn them,  or bag them and take them away, it should help.

I'm about to step on some toes here with what I'm going to say, but I feel everybody should know this.  I know a lot of people burn the nests. It seems the natural thing to do.  I used to myself until I learned more about it.  Burning may do more harm to the tree than the caterpillars themselves.  At least the tree will leaf back out next year from caterpillar defoliation unless it's real bad.  The heat from burning, even if you can't see any injury to the branches, can injure the branches where you burn, and injure the branches above it that get all the heat.  The branch tips or limb crotches where you burned, and the branches above them, could die in future years or be opened up to more insects and diseases where the bark has been injured by the heat.. 

The best way is to prune out the tiny twigs in winter that have the ETC eggs, rake the leaves underneath trees that had the fall webworm nests in them, then spray the trees in late spring, and spray any caterpillars you missed when you see the webs beginning to form.

[pineywoods]

We always burned the buggers, but we had a special way of doing it so there was no damage to the trees. Get a long bamboo pole, (not your favorite fishing pole). Tie a bunch of old rags to the small end. Soak in gasoline. Set the rags aflame and place directly under the tent. The intense heat will quickly melt the webs and cook the worms. It's not advisable to stand directly underneath, hot worms are not very nice. Done quickly enough, there is little or no damage to the tree. Maybe not the best way, but it works.

[SwampDonkey]

We have alot of webworms up here this year also. Never noticed them untill last year. Always something.  :

[mike_van]

pineywoods, thats how we would get rid of the hornets that make nests on utility transformers, wire, etc. I did hundreds of nests that way and was never stung.

[Tony_T]

Bt (bacillus thurungus) is effective on most catipillars.  Spray it on foliage they are eating, they eat, the bacteria set up shop in their gut, they die.  Recommended for fruit trees as it's much less toxic to most benifical insects and has almost no toxicity to humans.  can be brought in a wettable powder form at Agway.

[SPIKER]

tony thanks:  I haven't yet done much to the pear trees, but cut & burnt a bunch from the cherry & plumbs.   I'll have to get some made up for srping spraying.   although I'm not aware of any local agway stores.   I'll check at TSC , rural king & some others.   these critters are all over the local area of my farm.  dang neibors won't take care  of their infestation so they keep makeing there way into my place...


MarkM

[rebocardo]

For dissolving the nests, as long as you take caution not to spray your own eyes, I think brake cleaner would dissolve the nest enough where you could spray wasp killer or carpenter bee (it foams up) killer in there.

[turningfool]

in the past at least on smaller cherry tress where i can reach the tents i have used good old all purpose wd-40 with the little straw left on it, the straw penetrates the tent and one little squirt seems to do the job

[SwampDonkey]

Got any dried cat tails? Collect some now for next spring.  Soak'm (cat tails) in diesel and torch um on the low branches. ;D