Caterpillar Spraying
Caterpilla Spraying
Call Now! For an early spring application of our TARGETED CATERPILLAR SPRAY which affects only the caterpillar's that inhabit our area.
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''In 1981 there were so many gypsy moth caterpillars, they stopped trains that couldn't get traction on hills because they were slippery and covered the tracks. They caused car accidents, too. It was the Year of the Gypsy Moth. And this year is going to be close to it!" Charles Burnham of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation told a sold-out Brockton conference of green industry professionals March 23. But the problem isn't gypsy moths this time. Eastern tent caterpillars, fall cankerworms, and forest tent caterpillars are all out of control in some areas. ''A lot of caterpillars are going wild. I'm seeing ones I never saw before," said Robert Childs, extension entomologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The main culprit is a European insect never before seen on the East Coast. It's called the winter moth because the adult moths emerge from their cocoons in late November and December. If you had a snowstorm of these tiny moths at your porch lights last Christmas, your trees are in for trouble soon, thanks to their voracious offspring. These will hatch as caterpillars in April Winter moth caterpillars are active for only about three or four weeks. Around May 20, they will dangle down to the ground on skeins of silk and burrow into the top layer of soil, where they will become dormant pupae until emerging as adult moths between Thanksgiving and New Year's for their nighttime mating ritual. They don't eat anything then. The males just flutter around and mate with the flightless females, who clamber up trees, lay eggs, and die. Then next April those eggs will hatch . . . and on and on it goes. Call Now! For an early spring application of our TARGETED CATERPILLAR SPRAY which affects only the caterpillar's that inhabit our area. |
