Yep. Open the webs and let nature take it's course. Birds and wasps love the worms. Icky guts! PJ

Thank you!!!! You guys and gals are the best, and it's so nice to know I can come here and get answers .... and speedy ones to boot!!!

We have lots of birds so they're gonna have a banquet tomorrow!!

keep an eye on the open bags, I've done that and had them fall out and make webs on my roses

I sure will - thanks!

We've got A LOT of webworms in our trees and recently our St. Augustine is looking very yellow at the tips. Our neighbor mentioned these might be related. Any ideas?

Since we've had the webworm problem, we've noticed a lot of them around town. I'm not sure if we're noticing them because we had them or because there are more this year. We did open the web early the next morning, but by that evening, it was back, so DH just cut the limb off that was affected and we've been keeping an eye on it to make sure they don't come back. I don't want to spray - there was just a report on the news the same night we noticed the webworms about a lot of young birds dying - they said it's not the bird flu but most likely from all the pesticides people are using.

If the web closes, all you have to do is stick the rake handle up in there again & move it around to make a lot of damage to the fabric of the web.

The birds will thank you,
the tree will thank you,
you will thank yourself.

Spray the tree with BT every two weeks and after a rain. Mix it with one tbsp on molasses to help it stick better. It does not kill on contact and you must break open the bags to cover the leaves inside.

Caterpillars eat the leaves and the bacteria kills them. It is not toxic to birds or mammals or any other beneficial.

Here is a link that might be useful: bacillus thuringiensis

Ok - thanks!!

The bt won't hurt the birds either.

BT... the best. In a little green bottle at HD. We even had them on a big prickley pear! One spray w/BT and they're all gone.

what kind of spray are ya'll using? My parents are having horrible problems with webworms this year. My mom told me tonight they have eaten 75% of the leaves off their tree.
Thanks
~Angie~

scuba-gal, there's a link a few posts up under dallasbill that will tell you what spray to buy. While the link goes to Amazon.com, according to the other posters, it can also be purchased at Home Depot.

Thanks all for your sage advice.

Update - there's an article in today's (Wednesday) online Dallas Morning News about webworms. Evidently they're out in force this year - the article pretty much says what has been said here as far as what to do about them.

I have what I consider to be a pretty bad case of webworms. I first sprayed with Triazicide. That didn't seem to do anything. Then someone told me to spray with Dawn dishsoap.. They really seemed to like the bath and were more active than ever. I then did a little research and went in search of BT and couldn't find any so I got Sevin instead. I sprayed yesterday and I now have a ton of them on my lawn. Dead. However there are still tons of them falling from the trees. If you sit and watch you can see one fall about every second. Can anyone tell me, is this a good thing that they are falling? They are then climbing back up the tree trunks. I am spending most of my day like a mad woman running around the yard and stopping on them and using a broom to brush them off the trunks so I can stomp them. How will I be able to tell if this stuff is continuing to work?? Help, I am just beside myself and I bit obsessed as I am having a very large party in a week and a half in my yard....Arrg!

Oh bless your heart - that would drive me nuts. My only advice is to try and buy the BT online somewhere if you can't find it locally. I too wondered about opening the web and letting them fall on the lawn. We waited until morning since the birds and other insects aren't active at night.

Spraying them with Sevin accomplished 2 things -- you killed beneficials and not all the caterpillars.

Go to HD or Lowes, in their organic section, and get the BT. It stays on the leaves till the next rain. So, they will eat and kill themselves!

I am off to Home Depot to see if they have the BT today. Thank you. I am wondering, will I need to spray everytime it rains??

ok - told my mom about using this product - BUT - What type sprayer are you using to get the product up into the top of the tree, etc...
Thanks
~Angie~

I have webworms in my Cypress trees, but the trees are located in my pond. Does anyone know if this BT product is safe for fish? I can try to wade out into the pond to spray the trees, but I don't want to kill any fish.

I bought some BT, got it out of the bag to read the directions, got distracted, and then left the bottle on the walkway all day in the sun. Is it ruined do you think? Sheesh.

My question is, if i can get this stuff, how do I get it up into the tops of the 80 foot trees? The webworms have just about devoured all my trees, and I'm now finding the worms webbing up on the trunks. There are also so many in the yard right now that the dogs are bringing them in on their coats...I keep finding them around the house. ICK.

I thought we were sort of past the problem for a while there, but this week they are out again even worse than a month ago.

offlead, I am having the same problem. My trees are big also. I don't know how to help, but they are making me NUTS too. My neighbors trees are worse than mine, but doesn't care. Hopefully someone wil have an answer.

I own a pest control company and we have power spray rigs that can reach large trees. you can reach me at georgemy68@yahoo.com

Offlead, this will not be a very satisfactory answer, but it will work in the long run. You need to feed your trees and the earth in and around them. We have been having a real bad season for webworms, but when I hear that they are defoliating 80 ft trees, I worry about the health of the trees.

Whether or not you choose to go organic, you still have the same question: how do I get it into the tops of the trees? If you gots a long ladder and ropes and stuff, you can spray up there. BUT you still need to spread compost and worm castings and a variety of delicacies to nourish your earth and plants.

When I had a sick tree, I used Howard Garrett's recipe for Tree Trunk Goop:

Tree Trunk Goop
Mix 1/3 of each in water and paint on trunks: diatomaceous earth, soft rock phosphate, manure compost. Paint onto cuts, borer holes or other injuries on trunks or limbs. Reapply if washed off by rain or irrigation.

Perhaps this doesn't really apply to your situation. I had a lot of insects attacking a tree trunk during a drought stress situation. Howard also offers a recipe for a sick tree treatment.

Whatever you decide to do about the upper parts, I suggest you feed and areate the ground below. Organically! :) And if the tree gets more and more stressed, you might put a hose on the roots, since we've had so much rain lately and then sudden 100+ and total sun.

This is probably not clear enough, but there are tons of folks here more knowing than I. If you have questions, just ask!

Thanks for the info. The trees are definitely stressed. We bought the house two years ago in June, and everything had been greatly neglected for a few years before we got here. We had someone come in last year and remove four trees, two of which were pretty much dead and two which were rapidly heading in that direction. The remaining trees (there's a lot of them in our acre) all received a lot of pruning. There were dead and half-dead limbs overhanging the house and garage, and one tree had already had large limbs come down onto our front gate and fence. Since most of the larger trees in the yard are hackberries and mulberries, and pretty old/large ones, I basically said to prune them back enough that they weren't posing a threat to the buildings, and that we'd circle back around to another round of removals in a year or two. (We could only afford about $3k in work the first round...haha.)

So, the trees were pruned way way back not even a year ago, after two years of drought and unknown years of neglect. The soil was in very bad shape when we arrived. The first year here I never once saw an earthworm anywhere. It's been slowly improving, and this year we do have earthworms. (I was very excited...haha.) We're working to improve the soil throughout the yard, and it is all organic because the dogs get into all parts of the yard. Now we also have the dreaded webworms. As a point of clarification (confession?), I'm not entirely sure how tall the trees are. Very tall. Very mature. Considerably bigger than my house. But I have some vision issues that leave me unable to determine distances very well, so when I look up, I make a guess as how tall something is. Today I was looking at the trees from farther back in the yard, and they aren't 80 feet. Maybe 40? Big, anyhow, for our neighborhood, and definitely taller than the house.

I also took a closer look around at everything today. The trees primarily under heavy attack are the mulberries, and they have definitely lost 50% or more of their leaves at this point. The hackberries seem to have a few spots, but nothing like the mulberries. The redbuds have some webworms, but those are smaller trees, and mostly about to be cut down in any case. (They are all older redbuds, again in various stages of the end of their lives.) The crepe myrtles appear to not be affected at all, and many of the other assorted (unknown) trees seem mostly okay. In the mulberries, the webworms are BAD. They are raining down onto my roof, and then spilling off the roof. If you stand outside, you can hear them hitting the ground all over the yard, like rain, falling out of the trees. I keep finding them in the house, and the dogs now must get a "worm check" as they come into the house. *G* And the concrete paths and steps around the house are covered in a dark sand-like debris that I can only assume is webworm-poop. It's totally icking me out.

I already, before this hit crisis mode, had an appointment for next Tuesday with a landscape/tree person to help us start figuring out where to start on the totally out of control yard. I'm sure the poor guy will be appalled at the state of things at the moment. But knowing that the mulberries are all probably going to have to be removed in the next year or so anyway (they really are not in very good shape, and some are too close to the house to leave up if they aren't reliably healthy...one is a mere 3 feet from the side of the house, and two more are less than 10 feet away), I'm probably just going to have to wait this out. How long does this go on? When will the nasty little things turn into moths and fly off? I just can't justify the expense right now of having the trees treated, only to have to turn around next year and pay to have the trees removed. If the webworms finally do in the mulberries, we'll have the perfect excuse to take them out sooner rather than later, right? (This is me trying to find a positive side to this...haha.)

UGH I also thought the webworm issue was over for the summer. Right now they are not as bad as they were in June, but I still have some that have fallen out of my pecan trees and are starting to munch on other things (roses and lilacs seem to be their favorites). Does anyone know how much longer these things will last? I have some BT left from June but will have to spray every other day since the sprinklers will wash the stuff off!!! URGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

I also have webworms in my trees that are about 40 feet tall. This is kind of extreme, but it worked and I thought I would share. I hooked up the power washer and put the BT in the soap dispenser. I tied a rope around the power washer on the ground and tied the other end around my wrist. Then I got a ladder and climbed on the roof. After I got settled on the roof, I pulled the power washer up to the roof and sprayed like crazy. I got the top of the trees near the house and with the pressure on full power, I was able to cover probably 85% of the webs. The ones I missed, I treated from the ground. I got my pole saw and extended it as far as it would go. I attached to the end where the saw is an old piece of pantyhose that I filled with seven dust. I poked at the web with the saw enough to break the web, then I knocked the pole against the branch to release a dusting of sevin dust inside the web. It has become a battle between the worms and myself and I am not going to let them win! Good Luck.

My neighbor told me that it is too late to spray the tree. Is it right? It scared me to death to see how many caterpillars coming from the sky and crawling on the ground. (Mostly coming from my next door Mulberry tree. It is totally infested)
Please advise me on what to do at this moment. I know the caterpillars are harmless but, is there any way to get rid of them or should we still spray the tree with soapy water or BT spray?
I really appreciate anyone's help.

it is not too late. Webworms have 3-4 cycles per year and will continue to reappear. They are worse this year due to the weather condition- lots of rain. Although treating with a mild product is not as friendly as organic at some point you need to get control. We have had very good success in treating- you can reach me at Georgemy68@yahoo.com Our rates are very reasonable.

I had many webworms in the early summer. Waves of them. I searched the Internet and found this forum and other information. Reporting back. Most professional tree people will only spray 15-20 feet up. I can do that myself. Cutter works well, but it drips on me if I get back under the tree. After many rains and the cutter wore off, another wave of caterpillars came. I used the Dawn dish soap. They eat and poop to death, I guess. They never got big, and disappeared. Environmentally friendly dawn does the job. I could climb branches at get the top of the tree, which the professionals will not do. It drips down on your head, but its only soap, not drops of Cutter insecticide. When I used Cutter, they dropped to the ground immediately and died on the spot. ItÂs good for infestation when they are adults or on the base of the tree. The Cutter poisoned ones at the top, as they came down to the ground. With Dawn, I could cover the tree better and would use it as first preference when they are small. Several neighbors have trees like mine, but no leaves on them; where as I have leaves. Tree plugs are too expensive, and no good for fruit bearing trees.
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