Tent worms or whatever help

My area of texas (d/fw)seems inundated with brownish webbing in many types of trees. I suppose a type of Tent Caterpillar?

My ash and bald cypress seem free of them but my fairly young Lacebark Elm has a smallish area affected. For the last coupla days I've just tried to bust up the webbing with the water hose.

will the birds finish them off or should I use a different approach?

tia

Carl

Yep, breaking up the webs with a hose is a good way of dealing with them, it opens up access for birds to gobble the lot.

Resin

We have also taken a hose end sprayer and sprayed Bt into the tree to kill the caterpillars when they munch.

Thanks for the suggestion to spray the "tents" with a hose. Most treatment options given here locally are either chemical (sprays) or mechanical (remove and burn the infested branch). They are cyclical in this area.

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/pest_al/ftc/ftc.htm

well, I evidently do not have tent caterpillar, They form 'tents' in the crotches of trees. I have web worms.They are onthe ends of branches. So far, I seem to be able to affect them by blasting the webbing with the water hose. After 4 days of this treatment, there are no visible webs on my lacebark Elm anymore. An ash on my property and particularly one next door are my new targets. As a side note, I have not seen any birds interested in the areas i sparyed, BUT, paper wasps appeaered almost immediately today after sparaying an ash tree's webworms.

http://www.realgreenlawns.com/austin_tx_texas/webwormsx.htm

Carl


This message was edited Jun 20, 2007 10:28 PM

Way too many tree caterpillars to sort out! None of them any pleasure to deal with. I take it your neighbor is cooperative in managing the pests. The wasps be could be looking for moisture. Lets hope they die or move on to more hospitible territory.

my hope is the wasps can now hunt the caterpillars.

Evidently, the worms are not much of a threat to healthy trees. After all, most trees can tolerate a LOT of pruning. But, these things are unsightly and I just want to keep some control so a tree isn't inumdated with them. I'm trying to avoid chemicals or the expense of hiring a pro exterminator.

GO WASPS!

Thank goodness for old useful posts!

I searched around today to try to figure out why I suddenly had spider webbing just on the end of one branch. After determining that it probably was fall webworm, I then found this post. Fortunately, the branch that was affected was one of the lower ones, and I was easily able to take a dead branch and pull most of the webbing down. Rather than trying to take it off the branch, I have left it under my bird feeder for them to enjoy.