North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

It is very localized, although of course it might spread.  U-Mass extension 
has a lot about it.  I am smack in the center of it's Massachusetts range 
right now.

It's not just an issue for fruit trees.  It also likes several common shade 
trees such as oak, and to a lesser extent, maple.  I've seen (local) trees 
completely defoliated by winter moth, and in november the emerging moths 
are sometimes so numerous around my (commuter-rail) train station in the 
evening that people bat them away from their faces.

Although all the literature says they also attack blueberries, I have 
blueberries all over the place, including wild ones growing directly 
beneath my (affected) oaks, and have never noticed winter moths or their 
characteristic damage on them.  And they have a strong preference for my 
domestic apples over native crab apples.  I have several branches of 
domestic apple grafted to a crab, and despite spraying I always see moths 
and damage to the domestic apples, and little damage to the crab part of 
the same tree - even in years when I ran low on spray and only treated the 
domestic apple portion of the tree.
___
Ginda

...... Original Message .......
On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:24:10 -0400 "Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com> wrote:
>The alleged epidemic of winter moths in the northeast has me a bit 
perplexed.  I've always had a minor problem on some sites where trees with 
a light flower set will loose the potential very light crop to some kind of 
flower eating caterpillar.  On the same sites trees with a heavy set are 
unaffected by whatever reduction may be taking place.  The problem just 
isn't big enough to bother with.
> 
>I subscribe to a couple of the trades like "Good Fruit Grower"  and  
"Fruit Grower News" the first published in Washington the other Michigan 
and have never seen mention of this particular pest nor is it mentioned in 
Cornell's "Pest Management Guidelines for Fruit Production" in the 2007 
edition or earlier.  Given the unique timing of its emergence it makes no 
sense that it would be overlooked if it is such a potent threat.  Can 
anyone clear this up for me?
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