North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Amlie & Hayas <tamlie@netscape.com>]

In late summer, well after it's all over, pay special attention to 
the trees along the sides of the road.  If you drive down an 
interstate through a wooded area, you''ll be amazed at the damage to 
the trees (especially oaks if my memory serves).  When the eggs are 
laid in smaller branches, the branch often dies back to the point 
where the eggs were laid.  In heavily damaged areas the trees are 
carpeted with brown patches from dead branches.  Not a huge issue for 
a mature oak; a potentially serious threat to a young fruit tree.

I've got a lot of trees with scars from the previous mini-cycles, as 
well as the last big one from 17 years ago.  I'm not looking forward 
to the effects on all the apples and pears I planted in the last 2 
years (although I do enjoy the sound they make).

Tom A.


At 09:31 AM 5/15/2008, you wrote:
> 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
>
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