TINFOIL IS FOR BAKED POTATOES, NOT TREES” FORESTER

BY HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN

MCLAUGHLIN.HEATHER@DAILYGLEANER.COM

15 JUNE 2012

Fredericton’s city forester and manager of parks and trees cringes when he sees tinfoil, slathered in Vaseline, wrapped around the trunks of trees in the city.

The remedy is often used by people trying to ward off forest tent caterpillars from crawling up a tree to the leafy branches, which they then defoliate.

“It’s probably something that’s been traditional and they think it’s preventative maintenance,” said Don Murray. “I have seen one (forest) tent caterpillar this season. We haven’t seen any damage and we saw some virus in the population of tent caterpillars last year, so I think we dodged a bullet there last year and nature kind of looked after itself.

“The problem with wrapping tinfoil or other products around the stems of the trees is you change the temperature of the bark or you can actually smother the bark. The bark is a living organism that has to breathe, so if you smother it with tinfoil and Vaseline or lard or whatever you put on it, you run a real high risk of killing your tree.”

Murray said he has yet to see a tree die from caterpillar infestation, but he has seen tries die due to use of tinfoils and other things.

“We ask people to keep their tinfoil for their baked potatoes,” Murray said.

A bigger pest this year will be the European Chafer beetle that has landed in Fredericton, probably imported on out-of-province nursery stock.

A mild winter meant the beetle population wasn’t hit hard. Damaged lawns are appearing around the city again, as they did last year in Sunshine Gardens.

“This spring a lot of people had lost a lot of their lawns and they have actually stripped all of the sod off and they’re either putting new turf down or putting in alternatives,” Murray said.

“If we don’t get a traditional cold winter with deep frost, we may learn to live with this pest.”

The European Chafer, Rhizotrogus majalis, is a serious pest of turf, horticulture and field crops in eastern North America. In 2001, it was found in British Columbia in lawns and boulevards.

The adult beetle is tan-coloured and resembles a small June beetle. It’s about 12 millimetres long.

According to B.C.’s Department of Agriculture, which has issued a fact sheet on the insects, eggs hatch around mid-July and the grubs moult twice over eight weeks. The mature grubs are well adapted to cool, moist conditions and feed all fall.

During the winter, they dig down during periods of freezing conditions, but otherwise remain within five centimetres of the surface.

They feed in the spring until April, when they become pupae. Adults emerge in late May, fly to nearby deciduous trees to mate and feed, and subsequently females deposit up to 50 eggs each.

The grubs are the damaging stage. They feed on all types of grass and, if food is scarce, may move into vegetable plantings to feed on corn, potatoes, blueberries, strawberries, conifers and other crops.

Apart from the damage the grubs do themselves by feeding on the grasses, they tend to attract skunks and birds who will dig up lawns to feed on larger grubs.