How to Identify Tree Insects

What to Look for When Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer

December 01, 2022

Growing and maintaining a healthy tree takes time, effort, and dedication. Unfortunately, culprits such as disease, pest, and more importantly, insects don’t care about your hard work in maintaining a healthy tree but are all there to undermine your effort. To tell if insects are feeding on your tree and the kind of insect, this blog goes over six signs to help you identify tree insects.

Stippled Dull Foliage

Stippled, yellow, and dry foliage could mean lace bugs or scale insects are feeding on your tree. Scale insects, for example, suck juices from tree saps, causing the foliage to become yellow and dry.
Apart from insect activity, pathogens, air pollution, nutrient deficiency are some other factors that could cause discolored foliage. Therefore, contact your tree service company to determine if your tree is under insect attack and the kind of insect causing the problem.

Chewed Leaves

If you notice irregular, jagged edges or small holes in your tree foliage, beetles or weevils might have been feasting on the leaves. Because different insects have different chewing patterns, it may not be easy for an untrained eye to determine the exact insect chewing on the leaves. As soon as you notice chewed foliage, quickly let a professional inspect the affected tree to determine the exact cause and provide a treatment plan.

Distorted Foliage

Twisted, distorted, or puckered leaves often indicate aphids are feeding on your tree sap. Aphids have piercing sucking mouthparts that help them remove nutrients from trees. Early detection of this problem is crucial because aphids tend to multiply in numbers faster and can wreak more havoc when they are many.

White Spots on Trees

If you see an abundance of white spots on your tree leaves, you could be dealing with scale insects. Though some home owners can mistakenly identify the white spots as mildew or mold, the white powder spots sometimes indicate plentiful tiny white scale bugs. Scale insects are usually small, round, and wingless; hence, it’s difficult to identify them as insects.
The damaging effect of scale insect activities is far-reaching because they suck fluids that contain essential nutrients from tree leaves and bark. To ascertain whether the problem is truly an insect infestation or a fungal infection, contact your tree service care company for a proper check.

Holes in the Bark of Trees and Shrubs

Your tree is being eaten by wood-boring insects if its bark has holes. Sometimes, wood shavings may be coming out of the holes. Most borer insects are the larvae of certain beetles and moths. They feed under the bark of your tree, tunneling and boring their way into the layer immediately behind the bark. During his process, the movement of water and nutrient throughout the tree is hindered. If the situation is not addressed on time, many sections of the tree or the entire tree could die off. And when you have a dead tree, you’ll need the help of a tree removal service professional to cut down the tree.

Conclusion

Many of the issues pointed out in this blog are problems many homeowners can notice with close examination. If you detect any signs of pest infestation or suspect something to be wrong with your tree, contact a reputable tree service professional in your area for expert help.

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