Every year, gardeners and gardeners have to meet the beginning of summer fully equipped - with insecticides and motor sprayers in their hands. Increasingly, complaints are heard from the owners of suburban areas on pests that destroy the pine and spruce, especially young conifers that have taken root on the spot.
Why do caterpillars eat pine and spruce?
The thing is that our wild forests are in distress. No matter how much the owners of country houses take care of their land, various harmful insects - leafworms, bark beetles, aphids, sawflies, spores of dangerous mushrooms growing on tree bark - massively migrate from nearby forests. Indeed, today forests are not cleaned, they do not have a host. Overgrown and windbreak. What is there to be surprised when you see that even on a pine tree caterpillars eat something.
Who eats our trees?
The source of coniferous tree diseases is not only insects from the forest strip, but also the inhabitants of imported soil or planting material. A weakened tree is a tidbit for many wood eaters and pathogens. The first ones smell such a tree and scatter it like flies on jam to infiltrate a tree or gnaw on needles. But pathogens - disease provocateurs, are transferred to trees with the help of wind, rain, humans, insects or birds.
Sucking pests
Such pests feed on plant sap, inhibiting its vital activity or completely destroying it. Most often, such insects become: cicadas, bugs, coccids, aphids, gall and spider mites. Often eat pine needles or buds on pine caterpillars. They are called "pine moths." Butterflies of these representatives of the insect world lay eggs on old needles in rows, from which hordes of hungry insects appear from the end of June to the end of September. Most often, this pest eats ordinary pine, but can eat both spruce and cedar.
Another pest is the pine scoop. Although this pest does not last long in the caterpillar stage, it manages to "mischief" noticeably. Pest caterpillars located on the pine tree gnaw the May shoots, eat young needles and buds, which leads to the drying of the tree, especially in dry weather.
Black caterpillars on a pine can refer to a “pine mining moth”. The needles are braided with cobwebs, and therefore rests on a tree. But the wind blows, and the needles fall, so the crown can completely become bald. Small caterpillars literally gnaw round holes at the base of the needles. Sometimes it is very difficult to establish a diagnosis, for this you need to pick up the needles.
How to fight?
What to do if caterpillars are bred on your site on a pine tree? First of all, against the pine moth in late autumn, you need to dig the soil around the trees, because the caterpillars pupate in the soil. You can use various sprayers, they are sold in large quantities in specialized stores.
Caterpillars sitting on a pine, which are the offspring of a pine scoop, are effectively destroyed by food baits. This method is convenient in that the bait with fermentation additives is installed once, and the whole summer is in effect. Be sure to dig the ground under the tree to destroy the brown insect pupae. During budding, the tree is treated with biologics or insecticides.
Against caterpillars of a mining moth, multiple treatment of a tree with a solution of liquid soap is very helpful. You can lay cellophane under a tree and comb dry needles with a fan broom, then burn it.