If you have an eastern hemlock tree on your property and you live in the Northeast, chances are that you've noticed that it gets woolly at this time of year. Is the tree growing a sweater?
Actually, it's a invasive insect from Asia, the hemlock woolly adelgid, producing egg sacs that have the appearance of wool. The photo above was taken today and shows egg sacs on the underside of a hemlock in Cambridge, MA. These insects suck nutrients from the tree while also injecting a toxin into the tree. After several years of a heavy infection, the tree will die.
If you only have a few hemlocks on your property, you can treat your trees with chemical treatments that kill the adelgid. There are also some more environmentally friendly biological control approaches being developed that use insect enemies of the adelgid to reduce infestations.
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