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Insect Galls
What are they?
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Much like the recent slate of questions concerning bark lice, there's another set of questions I'm getting on the radio program at this time of the year. And they too are centered around something that looks bad, but are relatively harmless. I'm talking about Insect Galls.
Here's how the question usually comes to me: Randy, I've got all these funny little balls growing on my wood of my live oak tree. What is it? OR Randy, there are these fuzzy little asps on the underside of the leaves on my oak tree, what are they and are they dangerous?
Click here to see the different types of insect galls
In both cases, they are simply INSECT GALLS. And the easiest way to describe how they got to be there is that a beneficial wasp came by and laid some eggs. And, to the tree's credit, in a defensive move it created the wood or the fuzz around the eggs. In other parts of the world, other insects like mites create a varying number of galls, but for this neck of the woods, it's almost always on hardwood trees like Oaks, and Elms and Cypress trees.
But remember, while they may seem unsightly, they will never kill a tree. And in most cases, insect galls usually cycle off the tree in less than a year. Galls commonly occur on smaller stems and on the undersides of leaves, but may also occur on flowers, fruits, trunks and roots. And while most people usually describe the growth as a woody ball or fuzzy ball, my favorite description in a recent email question noted it as Aneurysms on the tree's limbs.
Again, these aren't harmful to the tree's health, but if you want to control them from cropping up again next year, you have to be willing to spray the tree down in 30-day intervals usually beginning in early May and going through early July. Insecticides with a residual effect in the tree will deter some of the wasps from laying the eggs that the galls are usually formed around. The ultimate method for control is a healthy tree. That's because the weaker the wood the easier it is for the wasp to lay the eggs. If you want to know how to keep a tree healthy, you need to see the tip sheet I produced just three weeks ago.
http://kprcradio.com/pages/listenernewsletter/GardenTalk_05-23-02.htm
Until next week, here's to
Great Gardening from the GardenLine, heard
exclusively weekend mornings from 8 to noon
on Talkradio 950 KPRC.
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