It likely is the pecan twig girdler. At our house, they bother the pecan trees and not the elm trees, but they are known to damage elm and several other types of trees in addition to the pecans. They normally are more of an issue in late summer/fall than in spring.

The link below includes a list of trees known to be be preyed upon by twig girdlers and describes their life cycle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pecan Twig Girdlers

The most important thing is to destroy or remove from the property the fallen twigs because there are eggs in there. That's why twig girdlers girdle the twigs. They are the nursery for the eggs and larvae. They're more a nuisance than anything, but they can do quite a bit of damage to young trees.

Wonderful to find this out. I found numerous twigs/branches that were chewed ~1/2-way through last Summer/Fall, and was curious as could be about 'em. A lot more American Elm were affected than Pecan, but multi-species were affected which deepened my curiosity even more. Thankfully, I got rid of all the 'dead' wood mid-winter so those eggs/sources are now ashed.

Good link, Dawn :-) Thx...

My garden looks like it has green growing all over it from all of the small branches. Most are about 5 bright green leaves and are about the size and color of the many pepper plants I just put in the ground. I keep thinking something is pulling them up, or that I'm stepping on a plant. LOL

I don't think they are the pecan twig girdlers. I have never seen one this time of year. The twig girdler will chew about pencil diameter to twice pencil diameter sized twigs and leave the chewed end looking almost perfectly like a very short, sharpened end of a pencil. This happens starting near Labor Day and the twigs fall throughout the fall and winter. I suspect the adults are just now starting to grow inside those severed twigs from last fall.

I don't have any idea what is causing the damage you are seeing right now. Do squirrels eat new elm shoots? A good look at the chewed end would give clues to the culprit.

google twig girdler, and look at the images. You can see, what the damage looks like.

Moni

After googling & seeing photos, the damage I see doesn't even resemble those images. The downed twigs I see are not evenly or smoothly cut, more like a ragged snap. Also more the size of toothpicks than pencil. I'll rake the debris from beds & lawn area, just in case, but the woods will just have to 'live with it'.

Scott,

I don't know if what she has are twig girdlers, but they can be active in spring (I see them in much smaller numbers in spring than in fall....maybe only about 10% in spring of what we have in fall). Some years I see some spring twig girdler damage and some years I don't.

Ksokiegonnabe, Your description doesn't sound like twig girdlers, then if it is that small and ragged, but I don't know what it is. We have oodles of elms in the woods, and I don't go into those woods in snake season, but I'll check the ground under some of the elms on the edges of the woods this morning. I don't think I've seen raggedly torn twigs that small before, but then the elms aren't in a prime place in our landscape and I don't pay them a lot of attention. Being elms, about the time they reach a decent size, they become diseased and start crashing down to the ground here. Are your trees large enough that whatever is chewing them up would have to be up in the trees, or could some animal be reaching them from the ground? When I have raggedly torn limbs, leaves, etc., it usually is from an animal like a deer.

Dawn

Yeah, I know (now) that there is a small number that for some reason don't come out in fall but wait until the following May/June, but I have never seen one myself so I would be pretty shocked if someone would be seeing a LOT of activity, especially since the branches normally don't all fall immediately and the desciption of her twigs was too small for twig girdlers.

Could high winds have caused the drops?

(I actually didn't know some twig girdlers waited until spring until I looked into it when I saw the original post.)

Scott,

Maybe, but wouldn't it have to be really high winds...maybe exceeding 55 mph....to do that? Usually, winds that are 50 mph only break diseased limbs here. I'd be surprised to see that kind of wind damage to young, supple growth in spring. Maybe it would be more likely on hardened tissue in fall or winter?

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what would leave a ragged or jagged edge. I don't have an answer, but I'm trying to come up with one. I checked our elms and they are fine, so I couldn't find anything that would give me any insight. I'd like to go into the woods and check the ones deeper in the woods, but am too big of a chicken to go in there at this point. The snakes are out, and so are other things.

Dawn

Squirrels can be the culprit as well.

Moni

it is squirrels