Some insects can cause injury and damage to trees and shrubs. By defoliating trees or sucking their sap, insects can retard plant growth. By boring into the trunk and branches, they interfere with sap flow and weaken the tree structure. Insects may also carry some plant diseases. In many cases, however, the insect problem is secondary to problems brought on by a stress disorder or pathogen.
It is important to remember that many insects are beneficial rather than destructive.
They help with pollination or act as predators of more harmful species. Therefore, killing all insects without regard to their kind and function can actually be detrimental to tree and shrub health.
Insects may be divided into three categories according to their method of feeding: chewing, sucking, and boring. Insects from each group have characteristic patterns of damage that will help determine the culprit and the proper treatment. Contact your Wood Acres Certified Arborist to determine the nature of the insect problem and the proper treatment.
Chewing insects eat plant tissue such as leaves, flowers, buds, and twigs. The damage by these insects is often seen by uneven or broken margins on the leaves, skeletonization of the leaves, and leaf mining. Chewing insects can be beetle adults or larvae, moth larvae (caterpillars), and many other groups of insects. The damage they cause (leaf notching, leaf mining, leaf skeletonizing, etc.) will help in identifying the pest insect.
Sucking insects insert their beak (proboscis) into the tissues of leaves, twigs, branches, flowers, or fruit and then feed on the plant’s juices. Some examples of sucking insects are aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and leafhoppers. Damage caused by these pests is often indicated by discoloration, drooping, wilting, leaf spots (stippling), honeydew, or general lack of vigor in the affected plant.
Boring insects: All pests in this category spend time feeding somewhere beneath the bark of a tree as larvae. Some borers kill twigs and leaders when adults feed or when eggs hatch into larvae that bore into the stem and develop into adults. Other borers, known as bark beetles, mate at or near the bark surface, and adults lay eggs in tunnels beneath the bark.
This index is meant as an educational tool only to promote tree & shrub health awareness.
INSECTICIDES ARE POISONOUS! Proper application is needed to manage pests - not kill beneficial insects and wildlife. Please contact a Licensed Pest Control Operator for professional treatment.
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