I was moving and evaluating my trees today and notice some white stuff around the base of my 'Attaryi'. I then started looking over the trunk and noticed tiny holes.Something have been eating into my 'Attaryi'. The newest hole. Old holes What bug could this be and is there a way to prevent it?
@LoverOfMaples, good morning D, that is a worry. Appears to be a borer of some kind. Hard to ID I'm afraid, but treatment is necessary 'sooner' rather than later. An injector chemical treatment rather than a non chemical method is the best option, before these insects kill your Atarryi or other maples close by. Prevention is ensuring your trees are not suffering stress from drought. Easy to say, but hard to do during this exceptional heat we are suffering. I would say pruning out the affected branches and burning but that is not practical on the main trunk, but do look for other attacked branches and remove. So the chemical route is my advice dear friend.
I hate this situation, sorry. Preface this with: I'm not an expert on borers, happily we are not as effected here as in some areas. If you're a scrabble player (or just like words), the sawdust-like stuff is called frass. It's a sure sign of borers of some sort. Bug poop really, best to clean it up so you can keep track of the activity of the infestation. Unfortunately, borers -- here we get several kinds -- can do serious or critical damage damage to their targets. And, they come back annually to the same (or neighboring) trees to continue the damage. We have several poplars that I keep a sharp eye on for frass. One of these, the very rare Himalayan P. glauca var jacquemontii I have had to reduce in size by over half, and it's not clear that it will survive; The borers cause the main trunk to split open, it looks flayed essentially. Similar issues with a young P. wilsonii. I have a medium-needled bovine veterinarian injection syringe, for this purpose, which I fill with a maximally terminal insecticide. Using something from Bayer right now. I liberally inject into the holes, and around the area. I don't believe fine-needle cambium injections are effective, at least not for us here (with our beetles, I mean), though I've tried it. The effectiveness is mixed: I have saved Red and Silver maples, on the condition that the trunk is big enough to recover and not be too weakened by the experience. The problem is that you can't be sure you've gotten to all the galleries, since you can't see where they are. Also, the needle gets clogged easily, so that's a pain. Obviously, this won't work with small branches as you picture above, they have to be removed. You're in with a chance with the larger one, but it will be a near thing; the question to ask is whether the tree is important enough to try and keep, or whether you should just pull and replace it. When you cut, look for galleries (or grubs) in the wood, and keep cutting at 1cm intervals until the wood is clean. Removed wood should be burned ideally or mulched (to cut up the grubs). Here the borers we see are not concerned with tree stress, they live their life cycle and try to install themselves either in the garden or presumably in the forest, regardless of weather, hydric or other external conditions. Perhaps they thrive during drought, but we haven't had noticeably more than usual this year. But of course there are thousands of types, e.g. I don't know about the specific problem beetles like the ash borer. I don't think that's what you've got here, but unless you see the adults around it's impossible to ID the species (and even then). Regardless, I would say there's a certain urgency to action, you want to interrupt the life cycle of the borer in your garden. It won't get better on its own, sadly. HTH, -E
Thank @Acerholic and @emery for the replies. E the tree isn't that important and can be easily replace. I've moved the tree to a different part of the yard. Do you think they are smart enough to find it in its new location? I'm glad this have only effected this tree because there where about 15 around it. They all seem to ok. I haven't notice any frass at the base of any of them. This type of borer most be tiny due to those tiny holes. I will try the Bayer insecticide injections today. Also sorry to hear about your tree problems as well.
No idea. Already, no idea how they find the tree they "hatched" in after flying all over the place in the final instar! Fascinating question though! I think we have to be philosophical about all of these problems, it can be frustrating to lose rare or precious trees, but it's part of gardening. Especially with maples.
I've only/also have this problem in the veggie garden with squash, zucchini, and vine borers. I can always fine the larvae but never the darn adult. But hey..... There are aways new challenges!
I left work early just to have surgery on this tree. I made it home and gathered supplies. Oh yeah, I also brought a few things from work. 5 3ml syringes 5 24g needles 2 18g needles Cut paste - I use for bonsai Bypass pruners I went to get the tree and noticed more frass. PREFECT, I knew it was in there and I was determined to get it out today. First, I cut the top branch where it had started to die and noticed it was hollow all the way up. I cut the branch into small pieces to make sure one wasn't living inside. I didn't find anything. I then went to the lower trunk (rootstock) where the fresh hole and frass was. I cleaned it out with one of the 24g needles. I followed with flushing it out with water. A small amount of frass came out. I then thought if it's still inside it would be hollow like the branch was up top. So I took the 24g needle and pushed it into the trunk. I could feel where the hollow section was because there was no resistance once thru the other layer. I continued to move up the trunk until I couldn't push thru. Once I fould the top hollow section I flushed it with water over and over. After a few times, out comes the larvae! I then used the 18g to flush the cut paste in the hollowed trunk and thru the bottom hole. I hope this works! Pics in no certain order doing the process!
Wow what a procedure! I love a serious approach, bravo on philosophical grounds for that also. No mucking around. Finding the extent of the hollow area is certainly the key on each cavity. It's interesting as always, so difficult to get a sense of scale from photos. I thought the hole was larger, and never realized there was one below the graft! So, I hope you flushed it completely, it sounds as if you didn't use insecticide? My sense is always that, since I can't see inside, that's important to get every last critter and egg. In France "serious" is a high compliment, and I mean it that way here. Serious! -E
Thanks E. At first I was going to add it to the burn pale. Then your post earlier made me put my thinking cap on. The tree isn't special and could easily be replaced. I couldnt see myself letting it go without doing what I can to save it. If it lives, it will definitely be on the special list. I flushed it a good number of times. I water can out smooth and clear after the third time. I also check below the entry hole and and it was hard to penetrate thru the trunk. So hopefully everything will be ok. If something is left I hope it gets smothered by the cut paste. Now I hate I forgot to flush with the bayers insecticide.
@LoverOfMaples, good morning D, just saw the post, what a perfect procedure and photos to show how you carried this out. Very impressed indeed D. 'Deserves success'.
