How are your trees in the orchard? They don’t seem to be interested in my pawpaws.
2 Likes
I saw two of the cicadas’ exoskeletal shells left on one of my Apricots last year.
They are hanging out in the pawpaws but not in massive numbers. They have done the same “trunk hugging” as in the picture.
I netted 4 smaller trees but some have found their way into all the nets.
I may remove the netting since it’s impinging on the growth of the trees and apparently is porous to the bugs.
I may try to wrap gauze or toule around a few branches with important grafts.
You may be a bit ahead of us. I see them but they gathering mostly on a maple and a hackberry in the yard. I’ll probably follow your lead and protect my smaller grafts.
1 Like
They love apple, maple and cherry trees. It doesnt seem like they do much of any damage. My new pup & chickens like to eat them.
1 Like
Wow yeah - that type of scene is what I remember from 2011, but so far has not happened yet. Perhaps too soon. Probably have the piles of carcasses in my future.
That’s their empty shells. They look weird coming out of their shell.
Picture from May 5th. They are still emerging out of the ground as of today May 14th.
5 Likes
Caught a female in the dreaded act. On my Ponca blackberry. Note the black ovipositor.
Now I’m kinda depressed.
1 Like
I had to cinch my netting tightly on the trunk that year. It did make the growth that year floppy shaped. There was no great solution, just a bunch of coping mechanisms.
1 Like
They are doing the deed on the Pawpaws for sure.
They’re not covering the trees, but there are so many in the area it wouldn’t take long for them to hit a lot of branches.
So far the ones I’ve caught in the act on the Pawpaws haven’t seemed to do as much damage as on my spicebush for example. Will post pics of that soon
Sorry to hear the netting isn’t working too well for you. It does need to be tied up tight around the trunk. I hope your smaller trees aren’t suffering too much damage from them. The cicadas will absolutely lay eggs in pawpaw branches. They don’t seem to care about the pesticidal qualities and the softer wood makes for easier penetration for the ovipositors. Pawpaws do seem to heal over that damage pretty well though, as long as the tree is healthy and the branch where the eggs were laid wasn’t too thin.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about the spicebush. They ted to be pretty vigorous growers that can shrug off browse or limb damage pretty easily.
1 Like
100% on the spicebush. Didn’t even consider covering those.
I called myself tying pretty tight on the trunk but perhaps not. There are also side seams I had to staple together which could be points of entry. But generally the bugs are kept at bay.
Good to hear on the quick recovery of pawpaws.
1 Like
Hahah yeah been noticing that too.
Can’t wait to post pics of the damage to my spicebush- looks like a buzz saw. Crazy.
The seem to have peaked here maybe couple days ago in terms of decibels and flying all over the place. Seeing more dead ones now and not as loud and active.
Yikes! On heavy hit areas and thin branches/trunks like that, it might be best to just prune that off, especially when they cut 2 lines on opposite sides of the same branch. They tend to get desiccated and are susceptible to breaking off later in summer or even the following year. Larger branches and areas with less consistent damage will usually heal over fine.
1 Like
Not too bad here in SW Missouri. Plenty of them but I havent noticed any dammage yet. Kids have made a sport of it!
4 Likes
Yep… 
same here in southern IL
1 Like
They are pruning some new growth on all of the fruit trees. They seem to prefer apple, pear and cherry the most, lessor peach, aprocoit, plum.
Bing cherry pictured, i suppose this is what the do when laying eggs in a branch, seems the perfer laying eggs in new growth. So what happens when the eggs hatch is my question?
1 Like
Ugh! Sympathies.
1 Like