CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When all the leaves fall off your trees, it's time to band the ones that attract cankerworms.
City of Charlotte Arborist Laurie Reid says the moths that lay eggs for these small green caterpillars are attracted to willow oaks.
What You Need To Know
- Cankerworms eat leaves off trees, which causes stress and could lead to the trees death
- The Charlotte cankerworm population was in the tens of thousands for 30 years, now it's dropped to the hundreds
- The city continues to band trees in anticipation of a cankerworm comeback
"If you've lived in Charlotte for any period of time you know they get in your hair, they fall from those little silk threads, and you can hear them dropping poop from the trees. It kind of sounds like it's raining," said Reid. "So the annoying factor was definitely there for the cankerworms, but also impacting the health of the trees in the city."
Reid says since 1987, the city has been tracking the cankerworm population by banding as many as 5,000 street trees. The count would be as high as 35,000 to 40,000 in one year from counting 165 of those bands. Reid says after a freeze in 2017, the count went down to hundreds. Now, the city only monitors 500 city trees.
In the 2021-2022 season, the city counted 121 moths.
The significance is because of the damage a female moth and her cankerworm eggs can cause to trees when they hatch.
"When the willow oaks are just trying to put out their leaves, usually in March or April, that's when the caterpillars hatch out of their eggs and eat all of those leaves off of the tree," said Reid. "Then the tree has to use all this extra energy to put new leaves out because the leaves are what make the food for the tree."
Reid says it causes stress to the trees and could eventually lead to their death.
She says the cankerworm count is low now, but the city continues to band trees and track the population.
"Knowing what insects do, we kind of anticipate them going back," said Reid. "Hopefully, not in those huge levels. Hopefully, we can keep people interested and continue to band trees to help keep those numbers low."
Banding your tree requires disposable gloves, cotton batting, plastic wrap, Tanglefoot and a putty knife. If you decide to participate, you could be a citizen scientist and report your numbers to Charlotte's Great Cankerworm Count.