Indiana Department of Natural Resources sent this bulletin at 08/18/2020 10:21 AM EDT
Weekly Review for Aug. 18, 2020
This informal report by the Division of Entomology and Plant Pathology is designed to update the Nursery and Greenhouse industry of insect and disease pests the Division has been encountering on a week to week basis and as a way to give a “heads up” of things to be on the lookout for. Comments and questions about this report are welcome and can be sent to your respective Inspector.
I’m still seeing a lot of active scale, including Japanese maple, oyster shell, and tulip poplar. Some of the highlights were cone flowers with rosette mite, although this wasn’t a heavy infestation. I saw some bald cypress with cypress twig gall midge. This picture was taken on a tree with thousands of galls while the tree directly adjacent to it was relatively clean. (Relatively being it only had maybe one to two hundred galls.) It’s thought that tree genetics play a role in which trees are more heavily galled but it’s poorly understood (at least by me). This hummingbird moth was one of many visiting the monarda and royal catchfly. I’ve seen a lot of things visiting tulip scale infestations but this was the first time I saw a viceroy actively feeding on honeydew.
There’s not a lot to report from Northeast Indiana. Bagworms are still feeding in my territory. I saw active caterpillars on Douglas fir, Fraser fir and spruce in Whitley, Huntington and Allen counties last week. They shouldn’t be feeding for too much longer though. I saw tulip tree scale feeding on a tulip tree in Whitley County with lots of sooty mold developing on shrubs under the infested tree. Maple mites were feeding on red and ‘Autumn Blaze’ maples, however infestations don’t seem to be as bad this year. Needle cast on blue and white spruce was also observed.
