North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <ginda@concentric.net>]

I have lots of some other caterpillar this year.  Something large,
green, and hairless, that I'm used to seeing occasionally - probably
some kind of hornworm or Sphinx larva.  I picked about 30 off of my baby
apple tree - voracious critters probably got half the leaves.

I've noticed that many of my graftlings are suffering much worse insect
damage than the crabs are.  I don't know if that's just because the
leaves sprouted later, and are more vulnerable, or if it's because the
crab leaves taste nastier.

Ginda

del stubbs wrote:
> 
> Areas of Northern Minnesota are heavily infested now. Are they elsewhere?
> It's a cyclic event, some say 15 years. Healthy trees are defoliated, then
> releaf in July 'like nothing happened', I hear.
> In our local area we've just started seeing a handful here and there in the
> woods.  While mowing the fledgling apple orchard today i noticed a 3 year
> old sweet sixteen with chewed leaves, but no insects obvious. Then my wife
> spotted them on the chicken wire enclosure. Perhaps sunning themselves after
> this mornings rain?   So we inspected all 200 trees, some are this years
> grafts-just showing first leaf. One got it bad, there being so little growth
> to take the feeding.
> It suprised me to see so many apples with just one catapillar per plant, I
> thought they we're typically only in the great bunches.
> So it's inspections every day till they give up.
> Much discussion of them on the local radio, and so far the concensus is Dawn
> detergent spray mix, or aluminum foil trunk wrap with grease.
> Mn. Del
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