Attack of the European Pine Sawfly Larvae!

Went out today to clip the candles on my tree. I had noticed that some of the needles were getting a little brown, but I thought that was just because of the ice storm over the winter. Boy was I wrong! On closer inspection I found that many of the branches were covered with creepy, crawly, caterpillar looking things!

Yikes! They were everywhere and I had to act fast. A little internet search found they were the larvae of the European Pine Sawfly. The sawfly lays it's eggs inside the needles of the tree and when they hatch the larvae eat the needles. Trees are seldom killed by the feeding of this insect during a single season but mortality can occur following two to three consecutive years of heavy defoliation. Plus it's just really GROSS!!

Usually, I like to be as environmentally friendly as possible but I figured this was do-or-die time at The Experiment and so I went to the garden store for some serious chemicals. Funny story, when I got there I told the guy, "I have a tree covered in worms", and he said, "...so are you." I had gotten several of the little buggers on my sweatshirt and didn't realize it. Back home, I loaded up the sprayer and gave the tree a good shower. According to my research, I'm probably going to have to hit it again in about a month. I also had to cut some branches that were covered in larvae. I did that before the spray and took them over to my neighbors chickens for a snack. At least they were happy. Hopefully this won't completely ruin The Experiment. The larvae only got to about one-quarter of the branches on the tree, so with a little creative trimming I think it's still going to work. We are coming up on year three of The Experiment, and no one said this was going to be an easy project.