North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Betty Mayfield <bmayfield@opusnet.com>]

I had assumed that the discussion concerned tent caterpillars, which 
on rare occasions have nested in my apple trees and had to be cut out 
because they were eating leaves.

But a quick check with Google sounds in part like two complete 
different kinds of web spinners. The eastern tent caterpillar 
(Malacosoma americanum) spins tents at the crotches of limbs and the 
trunk in the spring. But something called the fall webworm (

Hyphantria cunea

) spins tents at the end of branches and works down toward the tree 
in late summer and fall.

The behavior of the tent-spinners was like the fall webworm, but a 
picture of an adult tent caterpillar was exactly like the moths that 
preceded the caterpillar outbreak.

Have had only one severe attack, but the most of the leaves on apple 
trees were saved by cutting out and destroying the tents and branches 
as soon as they appeared.

Betty Mayfield
Northwest Oregon

At 08:02 AM 6/1/2008, you wrote:
> Alan Haigh 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?
>
> I'm not sure which moth is being referred to as winter moth in the last
> few posts.  Are we discussing the mainly European moth, Operophtera
> brumata, which invades Canada and the northeast US every so often?
>
> Or...are we referring to the collective group of a good many moths in
> various families that overwinter as adults which tend to feed on petals
> and new leaflets of early flowering/leafing trees?  Usually when
> lepidopterists refer to winter moths, they refer to this group of moths,
> mainly in the family Noctuidae, and typically members of the genera
> Eupsilia and Lithophane.  I do not know of this group really ever having
> been a true pest as these species are usually legion and fruit and nut
> set seem unaffected.
> _______________________________________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>
> Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed.
> This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on web sites.
> Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have permission!
>
> **YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
> Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded.
> No exceptions.
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can 
> be used to change other email options):
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
>
> File attachments are NOT stripped by this list.
> TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
> Please do not send binary files.
> Use plain text ONLY in emails!
>
> NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/