Articles Archive
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Maple Leaf Cutter
In some areas of Vermont, landowners have been alarmed to see the leaves on their sugar maples looking scorched and colorless in late summer. Fortunately, the situation is not as bad as it appears, for the culprit, the maple leaf cutter, is a late season defoliator.
The complete content of this article is part of the downloadable pdf of this… (more)
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Bruce Spanworm
The adult of this native pest is often called the hunter’s moth. Look for them during hunting season when they emerge from their cocoons in October or November, long after leaves have fallen and sometimes when there is snow on the ground.
The complete content of this article is part of the downloadable pdf of this issue, available in our… (more)
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White Pine Blister Rust
Two destructive organisms often take their toll on white pine in Vermont. One, the white pine weevil wrecks the sawlog potential of white pines by killing the leading shoot: when the side branches compete for dominance, multi-stemmed trees that are aptly called “cabbage pines” result. The white pine weevil does not kill the tree, but it makes such a mess… (more)
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Beech Bark Disease
Not too many people who spend time in the woods in the northeast have been spared the dismal sight of beech bark disease. The normally straight, gray handsome bark of a beech is horribly disfigured by the time it finally succumbs and dies from the disease, a process that may take many years.
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Ash Yellows
Until recently, the closest you could get to a scientific name for the cause of ash yellows was to call it a “mycoplasmalike organism” or MLO. Plant pathologists are pretty conservative people and even after more than 20 years of study no one felt they know enough about this tiny organism to describe it adequately, grow it in culture, or… (more)
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Artist’s Fungus
Conks, the fruiting bodies of wood decay fungi, are so variable in appearance that most people wouldn’t even consider trying to identify them and just assume that they are several notches harder to tell apart than even the dreaded ferns.
The complete content of this article is part of the downloadable pdf of this issue, available in our online… (more)
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Eutypella Canker
You probably have seen large old hardwood tree trunks which have enormous misshapen bulges, not too far from the ground, on what should be the most beautiful part of the stem. These look like devastating malignant tumors, dreaded afflictions that have come to deal the death blow to ancient deteriorating trees.
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Balsam Shootboring Sawfly
In the popular press sawflies just don’t get their due. They are a neglected branch of the huge order Hymenoptera. Their relatives- the bees, wasps and ants- are well known to all of us, but sawflies?
The complete content of this article is part of the downloadable pdf of this issue, available in our online shop.
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Trouble Spots: Tar Spot, Eye Spot and Anthracnose
The delicate, pristine leaves that burst from tree buds in May are such a welcome sight that it seems ungracious to mention that, even before they reach full size, many have been invaded by fungal spores that will cause ugly black blobs, lurid spots whose brown centers rot out, or ragged dead blotches by summer’s end. Alas, these are the… (more)
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Shoestring Root Rot
For much of the 200 years since the fungus Armillria was discovered, it was thought to be an opportunistic killer, a disease which moved in to deliver the death blow to trees suffering from other causes, such as drought, flooding or defoliation.
The complete content of this article is part of the downloadable pdf of this issue, available in our… (more)