Oak Leaf Rollers Having Banner Year in Fayette

By ANDY BEHLEN  Part-time resident Betty Adams encountered a frightening sight when she arrived at her and her husband’s property this weekend: millions of inch-long green caterpillars munching away at the leaves of every oak tree on the couple’s 20-acre tract on George Road. 

“We thought we were going to lose all of our oaks,” Adams said.

The couple splits time between their home and business in Eagle Lake and their property near Cozy Corner. They have some rice country friends in the crop dusting business and briefly flirted with the idea of chartering a plane to aerially spray their property.

The bugs’ recent population explosion has a lot of folks in Fayette worried about the fate of their trees.

“I’ve been receiving, like, 20 million phone calls on this,” said Fayette County AgriLife Extension Agent Scott Willey.

Fortunately, Willey said, the caterpillars probably won’t kill the trees.

“They’re called an oak leaf roller,” Willey said. “They have a high population this year due to the right weather conditions and moisture.

The bugs eventually turn into a moth. But while in their caterpillar stage, the critters have a seemingly insatiable appetite for new leaves budding out of oak trees during the springtime. Dangling by the thousands from tiny silk threads, they also present a nuisance to anyone walking under an infested tree.  

Willey said Caterpillar pest populations are cyclical and don’t typically explode year after year. But when they do, it can send landowners into panic.

“People come to Fayette County and pay a premium for land here because of the trees and the aesthetic,” Willey said. “But it’s just not practical to spray all the trees. You’re not going to lose all the oaks. It may cause some stress, but they will re-foliate.”

He said most property owners lack the equipment necessary to reach the top of the canopy, which would require hiring a professional. For property owners with many infested trees spread across acres of property, the job could end up time consuming and cost-prohibitive.

Instead, he said property owners concerned about the more pristine oaks and valuable landscape trees might consider applying fertilizer to provide extra vigor while they send out new leaves. He recommends a balanced fertilizer such as 13-13-13 or 10-10-10, applied at a rate of one pound of nitrogen for every inch of tree diameter, spread under the canopy and thoroughly watered-in.

Adams said her son constructed a simple trap consisting of a band of duct tape wrapped around the tree trunk with the sticky side facing out. She said the traps captured thousands of caterpillars in just one day.

Willey noted that the post oaks of Fayette County, which seem especially attractive to the bugs, survived without human intervention for hundreds of years. They have likely withstood the sporadic caterpillar attacks many times in the past.

For more information, Willey recommended some literature about the Oak Leaf Roller provided by the Extension Service and available at http://bit.ly/1SdzkJS.