The past few years, Gypsy Moth Catapillars have been making their way north, eating pretty much everything along their path. Last year, they ended up right at the edge of my hunting territory. The woods is now LOADED with eggs. When they hatch they'll defoiliate the hard woods where I hunt. Mostly red oak and some white oak. Does anyone know if this affects the mast?
Thankfully they arent established in Minnesota, but from the information I know and hand out to the public.....One defloiation will (typically) not kill a tree, in fact some trees can be defoliated and produce a second crop of leaves yet that summer. Consecutive defoliations will eventually kill a tree because the tree gets all its energy from photosynthesis, no leaves no energy. I would expect you will see little if any mast from a defloiated tree because it has no energy to put into mast.
Get rid of what you can and now. Trim and burn the stuff if you have to. I doubt that is the proper method, but until you do it's probably the best. As someone above said, eventually it will kill the tree entirely. Obviously smaller trees go much faster. You live in PA I see. Has that hemlock bacteria hit your area yet? I know the state had something listed for kililng off the bacteria four or five years ago. It involved Diatematious Earth (not sure of the proper spelling, but it's found in any pool store that sells chemicals) water, a 3rd unknown ingredient, and a power sprayer. If they listed for the bacteria, maybe they'll have something for the moths... I never looked. You might be able to find something on the net to spray for them. Luckily they hit Columbia County hard years ago and they started spraying for them. Now it's not such a big problem. Good luck.
They really hit the area around Raystown lake pretty hard a few years back. I've seen them around here but not too bad. I often hear people mistake tent catipillars for gypsy moths.
Thanks for the replies. I live in Schuylkill co. The last 2 years they've hit Lebanon and northern Dauphin co. pretty hard and now they're here. After the trees were defoliated, most did grow a second crop of leaves, but, I would have to think that mast production would be affected. There was not many acorns in any of the counties mentioned last year so I can't really go by that. Anyway, my plan is to find alternate food sources to hunt just in case.
Steve, I should've mentioned that I'm talking about public land, State Game Land, and it's miles and miles of mountain land that's affected so there's not much I can do. I do hunt a couple of farms also, maybe they'll be a better bet, we'll see. I haven't heard of that hemlock bacteria. Hopefully we won't get it?
