North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

Uh, Ginda, I think you didn't have fruit trees when the cicadas came out 
that time.  Their ovipositors do severe damage to twigs, which in young 
trees means the future main branches.  And whenever and wherever a pear tree 
is damaged, you increase the possibility of blight entering the wounds.  I'm 
very, very serious about how much my young trees can be hurt if I don't do 
as much as I can to protect them.  And "17 year locusts" is a commonly used 
term, though it is not technically correct.  I read an article years ago 
about the 17 year cicadas, the author talked about all the twigs that fell 
off from the damage and how he thought the trees looked greener the next 
year, he thought it was sort of like they'd been pruned.  I wonder if it's 
because they were now stuck with only little bitty larvae chewing on their 
roots instead of big ones.  About 5 years ago someone told me some of her 
trees were looking bad when they first leafed out, and then the cicadas 
emerged, so she thought they'd really been doing a job on the roots.  We 
kind of forget what's going on down there sometimes.      Donna