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Recently I was in my garden and I
looked over at my newly planted persimmon tree and noticed that the entire top of
the tree
had toppled due to the twig girdler. Now this is the second persimmon tree that's
been hit for me
so I was very upset. This twig girdler is a beetle that's about a half inch
three-quarters of an inch long it's brown and has gray modeled sort of
yellow and white
modeling on the back. The characteristic that you'll notice most
is that it has a very long antenna it's part the longhorn beetle family
all of which are problematic. It
particularly like cedar elms and the persimmons in my yard but it also affects
the hackberry, pecan, mulberry, mesquite
red oaks, mimosas, redbuds and many of the fruit trees.
After mating the female beetle will cut a v-shaped groove in the branch
usually a quarter inch to half inch
a branch but they got a little bit bigger with my persimmon tree.
And the notch that she cuts through looks like a sharpened pencil side
and so the the female beetle will
just cut a groove all the way around
the branch and leave these somewhat smooth sides
and then not, she doesn't she all the way through the center
so the branch will break off and leave sort of a jagged centerpoint. The
beetle will lay usually three to a eight
eggs in each branch and then the wind causes that branch to fall
the leaves will still be
on the branch typically as you can see here, these are branches that have
the a longhorn beetle, the twig girdler damage
signs and the leaves are still attached. So the worms live in the branch they
never go out until they actually
merge as adults and they burrow through the wood and a
one female can lay 50 to 200 eggs in a season
so it's very important to pick up those twigs and burn them or bag them and put
them in the trash to break the cycle don't compost them unless you have a
really really hot
composting bin. Pesticides are really not effective on them
if you see limbs that are hanging
with this damage and can prune them out of your tree that's a good idea.
Trees will often have misshapen limbs near the girdling damage
and they'll develop forks and crooked stems so you want to trim them
to help redirect the growth when you've seen twig girdler damage
happen in your garden
the worms won't develop in live wood so that's why it's important for the female
to actually trim the bark so that that limb dies
and they just burrow through then they pupate
in the branch and then they'll emerge in the
late spring early summer of the
following year as adults and repeat the process, so
picking those branches up to help cut that population
is gonna be your best bet you maybe want to encourage your neighbors
to look for twig girdler damage as well
so that you can reduce the population and get the guys under control.
They really can be devastating to trees I'll probably end up having to
replace this persimmon tree
because the damage was so low on the tree that I don't think I'm gonna get
enough branches to really develop a good shaped
on that persimmon tree again so I am watching with an eagle-eye to look for
all the twig
girdler damage on my lawn and pick those branches up.
For backyard basics on Tricia Shirey,
thanks for watching.