The Azalea Caterpillars Are Here!

Have you noticed that something is eating the leaves off your azaleas? Maybe you have seen an orangish-brown banded moth about 2 inches long flying around them.  Azalea caterpillars are showing up on azaleas already this year.  The moths are sort of pretty until the lay their 100s of eggs on your favorite azalea and the caterpillars start eating.

Azalea caterpillars primarily attack azaleas.  They will however feed on blueberry, viburnums, and apples. This large (2 inches at maturity), strikingly marked caterpillar is an occasional pest of azaleas throughout the South. Newly-hatched azalea caterpillars are yellow with longitudinal reddish stripes, but their appearance changes markedly as they grow. Older caterpillars are black, checkered with yellow or white, and have a reddish-orange head and legs. If you disturb the caterpillars, they will raise their heads and tails raised, creating a broad u-shape. Sort of like they are smiling at you while destroying your plants.

          Newly-hatched larvae feed together on the undersides of leaves, causing leaves to look like nets.  As larvae get larger, they spread out and feed individually, causing progressively greater amounts of defoliation. Heavy infestations can cause total defoliation of entire plantings of azaleas. A single caterpillar will eat 80 to 90 percent of the total leaf area during the last 3 to 4 days before it forms a pupa. This is why severe defoliation can seem to appear overnight. Plants that appear perfectly fine on Sunday afternoon can be totally defoliated by Wednesday afternoon.

Be alert for early signs of leaf netting caused by the young caterpillars. Early detection and control of young larvae can prevent serious defoliation later.  If you find only a few caterpillars, simply remove them by hand.  If there are large numbers, you might need chemical controls.  Any insecticide labeled for outdoor use will be effective.  People wanting to use organic controls should select products containing B.t. (Bacillus thuringiensis).

Designer Pear?

      Recently I judged the fruit and vegetable entries at the Neshoba County Fair.  The cool July allowed for some pretty good produce. The pear entries this year were probably the best I have seen.  They all had good size, shape, and color.  The only exception to this was an entry where all the fruit was apparently infected with cedar-apple rust.  Normally you will see spots on the leaves that look like these.   This is the first time I have seen it on fruit. 

     

      While I was making photos of the infected fruit, someone asked me if that was normal or was it a ‘designer’ fruit.  Good thought. Can spots on fruit make them more attractive?   Most of the time spots on fruit indicate rot underneath.  In this case these spots are only on the skin and can be easily peeled off.