I received an e-mail message today from an arborist in southwest Ohio who included images that showed damage caused by White Pine Weevil. Main shoots (terminal leaders) on white pine and Norway spruce were wilted and brown. Some of the shoot tips were curved into "shepherd’s crooks;" the curling occurs when tender new shoots dehydrate while they are still pliable.

Summertime: And Diagnosis is never easy.  Even with something as dear to my pathological brain as apple scab and cedar-apple (or hawthorn) rust on crabapple. I was on a walkabout at a northeast Ohio commercial landscape two weeks ago and came upon side-by-side crabapples – and the different symptoms of these two diseases on crabapple.

 

On one crabapple, apple scab infections caused some affected leaves to turn yellow before dropping; on the other crabapple the leaves turned orangish-red (the cover photo). As for rust, the lesions on the upper leaf surfaces of one crabapple...

Adult gypsy moths are active in NW Ohio. The males are brown to tan in color, fly during the day in a zig zag pattern and have feather-like antenna. The females are white and do not fly. The male moths seek out the females, they mate and she lays an egg mass that can contain up to 500 eggs. It is those eggs that will produce the next generation.

We held our OSU Extension Nursery, Landscape, and Turf Team (ENLTT) meeting yesterday at Dawes Arboretum. Among the beautiful landscapes and impressive collections was clear evidence that Yellow Poplar Weevils had made a return appearance in central Ohio. The adults feed on leaves and the larvae feed within leaves as leafminers.

Few carnivorous insects can match the amazing acrobatics and predatory proficiency of robber flies (family Asilidae) in their pursuit of prey. Adults of all species are predators and they will attack a variety of insects; even "armed" prey and insects much larger than their own body size.

My BYGL Alert last week on magnolia scale honeydew attracting flies [see "Magnolias Drawing Flies," June 5] drew several e-mails about flies coming to flowers. I must admit that I never paid much attention to flies coming to flowers until relatively recently.

Curtis Young (OSU Extension, Van Wert County) brought an oak sample to the OSU Master Gardener Volunteer Diagnostic Workshop Monday in Miami County that included wheel bug nymphs in various instar stages of development including some late instars. This means the unusual looking adults will soon be lurking among the leaves of trees and shrubs in Ohio in search of prey.

 

In recent years you have likely read more, learned more and maybe even seen more invasive species. Whether it is plants, diseases or insects, these pests should be on the radar - especially in the green industry. 

 

I was recently reading a local paper and the headline "Border authorities find invasive beetles in a bag of seeds" of course caught my attention. The invasive species encounter was success thanks to the work of US Customs and Border Protection.

 

Late last week, US Customs and Border Protection announced in a release that agriculture...

Honeysuckle leaf blight is a common, sometimes heavier than other times, non-killing fungal disease of crabapples. Many are noticing it this season.

I'm interested in observations about cicada killer wasps this season [see "No Killers in Sight as Dog-Day Cicadas Sing," July 6, 2018]. So, when Jeff Webeler (White Oak Gardens, Cincinnati) e-mailed this past Friday about a large numbers of wasps digging in sand backfill behind a retaining wall, I drove at more or less the speed limit to visit the site.