U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska
Date of this Version
1921
Abstract
The Apple-Tree Tent Caterpillar makes the unsightly nests or tents to be seen in the spring in trees along roadways, fences, and streams, and' in orchards. It varies greatly in abundance from year to year or over longer periods. Wild cherry is the favorite food plant, but many other plants are attacked, including several orchard fruits, especially the apple. During years when caterpillars are abundant the trees may be so completely stripped of their foliage that larvae are forced to hunt other food plants and hence are to be seen in numbers crawling over the ground and fences and elsewhere.
There is only one brood of larvae each year and after the spring visitation no further annoyance will be experienced during the season. Ordinarily the many natural enemies of the tent caterpillar hold it well in check, but when these agencies are inactive the insect may become very abundant.
Well-sprayed orchards suffer little from tent-caterpillar injury. On roadside and waste trees the nests may be destroyed by hand or with rags saturated with kerosene and fastened on the end of a pole. Direct benefit will follow searching out and destroying the egg masses on twigs of trees. The organization of school children and community citizens' associations for this work has had most excellent results in many localities.
Comments
Published by the United States Department of Agriculture in Farmers' Bulletin 662 (1921) 12 p.