Indiana Department of Natural Resources sent this bulletin at 07/19/2023 07:37 AM EDT
Weekly Review for July 19, 2023
This informal report by the Division of Entomology & Plant Pathology is a commentary on insects, diseases, and curiosities division staff encounter on a week-to-week basis. Comments and questions about this report are welcome and can be sent to your respective Inspector.
This has definitely been a year for aphids. Tulip poplar seems to have lots of them this year. I ran across one that was a great example of lady beetles doing their thing as natural enemies of aphids. The attached set of three photos shows a leaf with aphids and an adult lady beetle, a leaf with a lady beetle larva, and the last photo showing a leaf covered in honeydew and an attached lady beetle pupa.
Tobacco hornworm caterpillars are feeding on tomato. I also found one feeding on a pepper plant. Monitoring regularly for these hungry caterpillars and hand removing them is usually sufficient control in home gardens but when needed conventional insecticides are effective.
Japanese beetles have been out here in southern Indiana but so far populations have not appeared to be bad.
Although I am a relatively new nursery inspector with the DNR, I have many years of experience with landscape and garden plant problem diagnosis in other positions. This past week I found a new to me virus on hackberry, Celtis occidentalis, in a central Indiana nursery. This image displays the characteristic pixelated virus symptoms of island chlorosis on this hackberry leaf. The name for this virus comes from the idea that the angular leaf spots are often surrounded by a sea of green, like tiny islands. Many in the nursery industry consider this a disorder, not a true disease because very little damage to tree health occurs.
I’m a bit of a numbers nerd. This issue is my 229th Weekly Review as editor. That’s over 970 individual submissions and many photos. When I took over in 2011, we had about 40 subscribers. Today that number is over 8,400. All of that is to say thank you for following along with us. We appreciate your interest in what we do. We love to hear your comments and questions, so please feel free to let us know what you think!
I can’t believe the Indiana State Fair starts in nine days! Once again, our staff will be manning the invasive species booth in the DNR Building, which will have a bit of a different look this year. We’ll have some fun additions to our usual materials so please feel free to come by and say hello if you happen to be out there.
