Maple trees are one of the most adaptable ornamental refinement tree diagram for the home landscape . There are a vast variety of maples available to chose from , with a reach of forms , size , colors and habits . Maples have their share of disease and pest problems , just as any deciduous Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree does , but they have particular outcome with leafage - eat insects that destroy the striking leaves of the trees . Canker worms are also called inchworms . There are spring and free fall canker worms , as well as several other species . They incline to run on deciduous tree and hardwoods such as maples . Canker worms are the larva of night - wing moth , and their eating activities can seriously defoliate a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree .
Step 1
Fall and natural spring canker worms are the most dominant pests on maple . The worms are unremarkably light-green , but the natural spring dirt ball may also be reddish - brown . The larvae move in a characteristic jerking arch where they pull in their keister ends up to the front . Canker worms are modest , at only 1/4 to 1 inch long , and they have fleshy prolegs on the front of the worm . The grownup female person are wingless moths that rest egg in the later autumn or early fountain , and give rising slope to larvae at various prison term throughout the spring , reckon on the diverseness . The eggs are oval and set in clusters . The females are gray and waitress on trees for males . The male are winged and have stripes on their forewings .
Step 2
Life Cycle
Fall egg overwinter and hatch in the spring , while spring ballock incubate in a matter of week before outgrowth . Feeding commences and live on until the larvae pupate in recent June . The larvae primarily feed on the young new growth of the maple . The matured larvae drop to the land in previous June on silk threads and tunnel into the ground . They make a cocoon and pupate until the previous declension or other bounce , depending on the species . Adults then begin the mating and egg - laying ritual again , and the cycle reduplicate itself .
Damage
The larvae are the damaging form of the insects . They create the most damage from rearing foliage eating . They get far-flung defoliation in the other give , which can diminish the tree ’s energy . Maples and all other trees require their foliage to produce carbohydrates harvested and converted from the sunlight ’s get-up-and-go . This is an important fuel source for plant increase and development , and defoliation can kill the tree if it go on every year . Fortunately , canker worms unremarkably have a three- to four - year cycle and then go by . One other insect that has persistence is the European wintertime moth , which has infest areas of the East Coast and is an put in cuss . Its outbreaks have lasted for eight geezerhood or more , but it is not vulgar throughout the United States .
Control
raw ascendancy are the most environmentally friendly and good . B thuringiensis is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that invade the feed larvae and kills them . It must be sprayed just after the eggs have hatched but before the larva are more than 1 inch long . Sticky ambush placed in the maple are efficacious at capture the pests and are nontoxic . Horticultural crude provide effective ascendency if sprayed in the outflow . A 2- to 3 - percentage solution can even kill the eggs .