Scott
As I understand it, this nasty things crawl up the trunk of the trees, after they emerge from their winter hiding places, (sometimes in the siding of a house). Too late now, but this winter, one could out a barrier of some sort wrapped around the trunk of the tree which would prevent their being able to climb on it. Something similar to a squirrel barrier. Seems like even a barrier of Saran Wrap wrapped several times around "might" work. I've never tried it, but I may. I don't remember where I read that info, but I'm sure it's on the information highway somewhere.

Good luck,
Barbara

Barbara, that is a different kind of caterpillar.

These hatch from large batches of eggs laid on a leaf by the moth (which was from the first generation back in June). They never leave this area of the tree until their growth is complete. They live in the large web that they make as they move about and consume the area of that branch.

Scott,

We haven't seen any here yet and I'm about as far south as you can go. It has been exceptionally hot and dry and there hasn't been much rain, so that might have affected them (?).

Barbara,

For the ones you're thinking of, smear Tree Tanglefoot in a band around the trunk and they'll 'stick' to it and die.

Dawn

Scott
That is truly disgusting! I don't know why these pests have to be that repulsive!

Dawn
I like that idea. They get stuck to the Tanglefoot and DIE!

We have a couple of pecan trees with those large fluffy webs with worms inside- up in some high branches. Some years they're worse than others. This was the first year I've ever had them in other trees, in this case it was a redbud, and we were able to clip off those branch tips and destroy them. So....I think you may be right about the wet season being a possible factor in their proliferation, Dawn.

Barbara

When we get some good storms at the right time, and when we have good populations of predators, they take a large hit and don't show up much. I don't know much about how it all interacts.

The last two years most of our pecan trees were largely defoliated by mid-Sept (due to diseases and aphids) so the second generation was not visible. This year the canopies are healthy so far, so this generation will show up more.

An update.

Up here the webs are just getting big enough to see, but there are a LOT of them. I removed about 6 tiny webs per tree from my 12 ft high pecans. There were enough to defoliate about 80% of each tree by about Sept 15. The trees around town are going to start getting ugly really fast.

Still none here that I have seen. Maybe we are still hot? We've been in and near the 100s this week.

I hate these things and am glad they are not here yet.

I think you are not going to have any, Dawn. Maybe you didn't have much of a first generation, or maybe the weather at the time got most of them. Yours should be earlier than ours

They show up most on pecan, walnut, and persimmon trees that are younger and out in the open. The moths seem to be drawn to these trees. The stage that I am seeing now will not be seen by people "driving around" until the webs are a week or so older. Right now each web only consumes 1 to 3 leaflets and the worms are still much smaller than a grain of rice.

Scott, You know, it absolutely will not break my heart if we don't have any here this fall.

Maybe it was the weather because I haven't seen many at all this entire year.

Something does eat all the foliage on our native persimmons every spring, but I don't know what. Well, clearly it is some form of caterpillar, but I don't know which one. Whatever they are, they strip the trees almost completely of their foliage and then the trees leaf out again in a couple of weeks. I don't think I routinely see anything here like that in the fall though.

The persimmons are on the banks of the big pond (an old stock tank) so I don't really pay a lot of attention to them. They sort of make it all on their own down there.

Dawn

We took a couple of webs down from our pecan last evening. There were a thousand rice sized worms getting ready to destroy the tree. Thanks very much for the note that got me lookin'!