{"id":308,"date":"2012-06-21T15:05:35","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T22:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/?p=308"},"modified":"2012-10-25T14:56:08","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T21:56:08","slug":"return-of-the-tent-caterpillars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/2012\/06\/21\/return-of-the-tent-caterpillars\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of the tent caterpillars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The western tent caterpillar<\/a>\u00a0is a native insect to our forests. It population is cyclical. Over a period of two to three years, the population builds up and then crashes as natural parasites and diseases kill them off. Then we don\u2019t see them again for maybe 8 \u2013 10 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This week I saw some tent caterpillars in a recently planted site near Clatskanie (see photo). Last month, I saw lots more over by Sisters, where they were all over the bitterbrush around our family\u2019s camping spot (\u201ceew\u201d, proclaimed my 9-year-old). Here on the westside, they prefer hardwoods such as alder, cottonwoods and willows.<\/p>\n

While they may look alarming and can substantially defoliate the trees they infest, there\u2019s little cause for alarm. The caterpillars are done feeding by late June, and the affected plants typically regrow a new set of leaves later in the summer. There\u2019s no reason to spray insecticide \u2013 the best strategy is to wait it out and let nature take its course.<\/p>\n

My guess is that we\u2019ll see more western tent caterpillars in some localized areas next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The western tent caterpillar\u00a0is a native insect to our forests. It population is cyclical. Over a period of two to three years, the population builds up and then crashes as natural parasites and diseases kill them off. Then we don\u2019t see them again for maybe 8 \u2013 10 years. This week I saw some tent… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1783,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55521],"tags":[3468],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forest-health-2","tag-forest-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}