Peak year for army worms

The army is coming–army worms, that is–and there will be lots as we hit the peak of their 10-year cycle.
“We expect there to be at least as many, if not more, than last year. This is their peak year,” Ministry of Natural Resources project biologist Darren Elder noted Friday.
Last year, the army worms were keeping some people indoors as they rained off roofs and consumed almost all the foliage in some areas.
Now, they have just begun to emerge from their egg-bands and are again looking for food.
“Larvae hatches out of their eggs in late April, early May. Then the young larvae just start eating,” said Elder.
The caterpillars continue to eat and go through several shedding stages before they go into cocoon in mid to late June. A few weeks later, they emerge as moths, mate, lay eggs, and then die.
Fortunately, after this year, we’re not likely to see this many of the critters for another 10 years.
“What happens is they reach a critical level,” explained Elder. “The tachinid flush fly is a natural parasite of the forest tent caterpillar in the area.
“Once the caterpillar reaches a high density, so do the flies, so there’s more than the caterpillars.”
Most trees survive the de-foliation at the hands of the caterpillars but there are some products available to defend against them.
“They will attack ornamental [trees]. You can buy a couple of things like pesticides or biological insecticides,” said Elder.
One retailer helping customers with the bugs is Canadian Tire where, besides their multipurpose pesticides, they have stocked up with environmentally-friendly Tree Guard Tape.
“We’ve got a lot of this stuff you wrap around the tree to stop the caterpillars from multiplying,” noted store manager Kevin Thiesson.
“You put it on the trunk and it’s sticky on both sides so it stops the little critters from going over or under it.”
Although the caterpillars are a nuisance, they are unavoidable.
“They’re just a natural part of living in Northwestern Ontario,” said Elder.