?Would y'all be interested in a forestry bug, disease or disorder of the day?

[caveman]

 

I was thinking that we could include pictures of the bugs, larvae, adults, damage or even written descriptions.  Weeds, vectors of diseases, invasive species, and diseases would also be fair game.  For those of you who participated in the "Tree of the Day", this might be interesting.

The picture above is of damage caused by an insect.

[Don P]

The dreaded banding caterpillar, looks like they dropped right off 

[Roxie]

No guess on this one but I am in for the thread idea!  

[Ljohnsaw]

 :P
Always interested in learning!

[caveman]

The twigs rubber banded together were cut off by a twig girdler.  The bug looks a lot like some of the other wood borer beetles.  The adult beetles lay eggs on the twigs, girdle them off and the larvae begins its life cycle in the soil.

Twig Girdler | NC State Extension Publications (ncsu.edu) 
Twig Girdler Damage on Young Trees | UGA Pecan Extension 

[caveman]

Today's forest pest/disorder eventually will turn into a moth.  This is the larval form below.  The eyes on the caterpillar are one of the most distinguishing features.


Bonus for identifying the leaf, which is a hint to what the caterpillar is.  The leaf is alternate, simple, entire, revolute and thick compared to most of the same genus.

[Don P]

If that's oleander...

[caveman]

It's not oleander leaf or caterpillar.  Ironically, last night when we went in for supper, I noticed I had a small oleander caterpillar crawling on my left wrist.  My almost 4yo grandson was with me in the kitchen and I was explaining to him that the orange and black oleander caterpillar was adapted to be able to eat poisonous leaves of the oleander plant.  My grill was nearby an oleander bush.

[Don P]

I was guessing oleander hawk moth when you said it had "eyes". I think all the imperial moths have horns or spikes  ???.  I'm just looking around at pictures and see a great Swallowtail has distinctive eyes and dines on citrus?

[caveman]

The caterpillar above is call the variable oak leaf caterpillar.  They prefer white oaks.  This is the only one I've ever seen, but it was on a live oak leaf.  I'll try to get a something together for today, but the next few days I may be away from the computer.

[Don P]

These are gonna be tough, for most of us bugs is bugs and bugs is bad  :D

I found one on an old stick yesterday. It's on red oak, which is where I've seen them. The damage looks like a shotgun blast.



 

[Ljohnsaw]

PPB?

[Don P]

This one was an oak timberworm.

Often I can cover the "shotgun blast" of damage on a board with my hand, imagine a small horde of worms travelling across the tree... and back  :D

The U turn they mention in all the articles below is a giveaway when you see the damage. Look at the range of hole sizes in the shotgun blast in the photos. Tiny larvae heading out and mature larger ones on the return leg of the journey.

Oak Timberworm, Not Your Average Weevil | (govdelivery.com)

Oak/Oak Timberworm - Bugwoodwiki

Arrenodes minutus - Wikipedia

We felled and started chainsaw milling a large beam out of a scarlet oak several years ago when I saw the damage. As we continued rolling and sawing I finall rejected the timber and made a couple of posts. Knowing those bugs were cutting a dotted line clear across my beam and back was no cause for comfort!

That oak post above had been sawn a year prior and was at that point down in the garage on the job being notched when that bug was trying to lay eggs in my fine timber.
You can tell this is a female, she has that long probiscis with a pair of pinchers on the end for excavating an egg hole with, that's what she is doing prior to spinning around and dumping a load of eggs. A male has those pinchers mounted right to his face, there is no long snout.

After notching, all the timbers went for a borate bath and a day or two of redry prior to final fitup. That particular area is known for borer problems in their oak, lots of firewood.

[caveman]

 

 

This one should be familiar to a lot of folks.  I have never seen it in my neck of the woods, probably due to the lack of the alternate host.  I think I took this picture north of Eufaula, Alabama at Jmoore's in-law's place.

[Texas Ranger]

CAR

No apple or hawthorn in your neck of the woods?

[caveman]

The last one is cedar-apple rust.  



This is what the woody rust gall looks like on a cedar after the orange fungus dries out.  

[caveman]

 
This tree lived.
 

  
The tree below died.
 

 

 

 

The damage and larvae are pictured.  Sometimes these kill the trees and sometimes they just cause damage.  The heavily infested longleaf pine above did die.  There are imported, red headed, black headed and several other varieties.  They can be found every year, but they seem to be much more pervasive on a seven-year cycle.  I am familiar with the ones that feed on southern yellow pines, but I assume there are varieties in many other areas feeding on many other species of pines. 
What do we have here?

[Don P]

I sat on my hands till lunch :D  Pine Sawfly?

[caveman]

They are a lot harder for me to identify by the mature insect (fly).  Pine sawflies lay their eggs on the pine needles.  When I first saw them (eggs), I thought they were some kind of scale insect.
stelprdb5347774.pdf (usda.gov) 

[caveman]

 

 

 
These are pictures of a sample that was on the disorders section of the Florida state forestry contest last week.  Notice that the two seedling pines are dead (probably slash pines).  The bug is one of a group that has a name given to any of this group (example:  there are many different types of wood borers, grubs and beetles, but they all can be referred to as wood borers).

[Texas Ranger]

deodar weevil?

[tule peak timber]

Out west we have lerp psyllids attacking the eucalyptus trees. Typically found on dry stressed trees. Pronounced lurp sillids.

 

[Don P]

These are pictures of a sample that was on the disorders section of the Florida state forestry contest last week.  Notice that the two seedling pines are dead (probably slash pines).  The bug is one of a group that has a name given to any of this group

Pine bark beetles... ips, spb, btb?

[caveman]

Texas Ranger was right 8).  

Deodar weevils are one of the reproduction weevils.  Pales weevil is another.  They can kill over 90% of newly planted pines in heavy infestations.  Weevils have the "proboscis, elephant trunk appearing head" unlike the bark beetles.  They are about the size of a black turpentine beetle or maybe a little bigger.
ENTO-386 (vt.edu)  To minimize the risk of reproduction weevil attack, remove slash and cut stumps or wait a year or so after harvest to replant.

Rob, we have Asian Citrus Psyllids here.  They have decimated the citrus industry as they are the vector for the dreaded greening disease.  Do those psyllids cause serious problems with eucalyptus or other trees?

[tule peak timber]

Just the Eucs here.
  Back before I tried woodworking I tried raising lychees of several cultivars on a place I had behind Camp Pendleton in the hills. GREAT growing conditions and I had several years under my belt of raising, grafting and putting in acres of lychees that were just starting to produce. There was some kind of a soil borne condition that the University could not identify that caused the trees to all suddenly turn brown and die, wiping out my investment and years of work. To this day I have no idea what happened and I don't know anyone who could possibly tell me. Very expensive venture. The lights on the orchards literally went out; kaboom