The hoppers completely defoliated my apple trees, a London Plane, Bloodgood Japanese Maple and a Plains Cottonwood over the summer. They also ate the roses, garlic, peppers, it just goes on.

These trees are now growing some new leaves. We are probably a few weeks away from out first hard freeze and have had one light frost this last week.

I'm wondering how this is going to affect the trees. Will the trees be at a disadvantage going into fall and winter with such little leaf surface?

I know there's probably nothing to be done but send them into winter with a good drink of water and mulch. I'd just like to know if I'm likely to lose a few of them due to the leaf loss.

Thanks as always for your input!

Barb

Probably. Not unheard of and plants will be temporarily weakened but should recover. With our La Nina you'll want to keep hoses handy for winter watering this year.

Dan

It will be next spring and summer that will reveal the extent of the damage. It takes enormous stored energy reserves (which your trees simply do NOT have) to produce the spring flush of growth. Your trees will attempt to remetabolize (is that a word?) carbon stored primarily in the root system....at the sacrifice of that already tapped out root system.

The very best thing you can do is what you have already done...mulch and provide water if needed. I would avoid any kind of fertilizer that might force artificially rapid growth, so that the trees can begin to recover at their own rate. IF they can.

Trees, if they are reasonably healthy in the first place, can bounce back from insect defoliation, but not if it happens over and over. Since this is only the second year, I'm going with Dan on this....your trees have a pretty good chance of recovering.

One apple tree is 10 years planted and otherwise healthy, still has apples on it, but just a handful of new leaves. The other 2 apples were planted 3 or 4 years ago. The other trees are spring plantings this year.

The grasshoppers did not eat the trees last year. There was apparently enough other forage for them.
This year I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted them 7 or 8 feet up a tree! I shook them out of the London Plane at every opportunity, but they won.

I'll hope for a long fall so the trees can get something from those leaves.

Dan, thanks for the heads up that we'll have another dry, windy winter. I didn't water enough last winter and will do better this winter.

Barb

Dan

Just a thought.

tj

Dan, I learned my lesson last winter. I watered a couple of times, but will up it to at least a monthly deep soaking of everything. The deciduous trees took a beating last winter and I won't let that happen again.

Thanks!

Barb

Surround has been on the market for quite a long time, mostly used by tree-fruit growers. It protects the foliage from pests and the fruit from pests AND sun scald. It's becoming more and more popular with growers of all kinds.

I'm seeing lots of bees, so I didn't do too much damage with the Sevin. Still, I hated having to resort to it. I'll try Nolo bait at the right time next year.

I can live with leaf staining. I don't care if the leaves turn purple and glow in the dark as long as they stay on the trees and out of the hoppers stomachs. Thanks, scotjute and rhizo, I really appreciate the info.

From what I've been able to gather, grasshopper infestations run 2 - 4 years, so I'm either at the tail end or have another year or two to look forward to.

Leaves are starting to turn here so I'm thinking it would be best applied next May - June?

I'll read up on Surround.