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Re: caterpillars

Hi, C.L.!
 
We haven't seen this pest (yet) in CT., but I expect it's making its way south.  In checking the cooperative extension offices further north and east than Fairfield county where I volunteer, no one has seen it or had clients contacting us about it.  We'd like to be well-prepared for its arrival.  Can you refer me to some sources of info like websites, etc.? 
 
Also, does this pest prefer certain trees like sycamores, etc.?
 
Thanks and regards,
 
Lorraine Ballato
 
----- Original Message -----
From: C.L. Fornari
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 6:45 PM
To: Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum
Subject: Re: [GWL] caterpillers
 
Winter Moth Caterpillars are the main landscape topic here in the Northeast.  Trees all over Massachusetts have been stripped.  A third of the calls on my radio
program are about this pest, and I am writing articles about Winter Moth and being interviewed by other writers every week.

1. Winter moth is a new pest moving across the NE - similar to Gypsy Moths twenty or thirty years ago.
2. Most effective (and least toxic) treatment is to spray Bt or a product that has Spinosad as it's main ingredient - spraying at bud break and repeat until the larvae
drops to the ground to pupate, sometime in mid to late June.
3. The fly that is being released lays it's egg on leaves - when these eggs are eaten by the winter moth caterpillars the caterpillars die.  It will take five or more
years for the fly to have some control.  The fly does not harm ANY other insect, bird etc - well tested.  In the meantime, birds are eating the caterpillars and
feeding them to their young.
4. Denuded trees should be able to put out a second growth of leaves - trees stressed by other factors such as drought might be more severely affected.  Home
landscapers need to be reminded that the best way to help trees is to mulch around the tree and water deeply once a week if it hasn't rained.  (Do not be tempted
to fertilize to push new growth.) 
5. Take it from Rozanne Rozanadana (character played by Gilda Radner in Saturday Night Live): "It's always something."

Not everyone is panicked.  In the local paper, a woman was interviewed about this pest as she sat with a cocktail in her back yard.  While she was being
interviewed, two caterpillars fell into her gin and tonic from the trees above.  As she complained about the winter moth, she dipped her finger into the glass and
scooped out the caterpillars.  "Why waste a good drink?"  she commented before her next sip. 

C.L.
C.L. Fornari
www.gardenlady.com



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