How To Protect Young Trees From Cicadas

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A young oak tree.

It seems like everyone has an opinion on the cicada invasion set for this summer — even non-human life.

Most birds and dogs love eating the slow-moving, crunchy insects, but cicadas can be life-threatening to young trees and bushes. If they could have an opinion, it wouldn't be positive.

For cicadas, young trees are an ideal host for the decades ahead. Cicadas crawl up trees and create slits in thin tree branches to lay eggs — especially thin branches close to the ground, like those on young trees and bushes. Those slits can make the branches weak and can cause the branches to break or die, according to the Davey tree company.

So how do you protect your saplings from becoming a host for the next generation of cicadas?

You have a few options:

Before the cicadas arrive en masse, you can wrap the tree trunk (up to the lowest branches) in cheese cloth or in spun-bonded, polyolefin fabric (a specialized type of polyester that is sometimes also called "tree wrap").

You may also get netting (the mesh size should be 1 cm. or smaller) to protect thin branches on newly transplanted trees.

Other options for "tree wrap" include foil tape, barrier tape or sticky tape. "You'll need to wrap around the tree trunk and where the twigs meet the branch, said Frank Meek, an entomologist and manager of technical services at pest controller Orkin. This will help prevent the female cicadas from laying eggs in your trees," CNet reported.

If you already see cicadas on your trees, you'll need to do some pruning. "If you first saw a lot of cicadas, followed by slits in your tree’s branches, act fast — especially if your tree is younger. You’ll want to prune those branches off within 6 to 10 weeks. That way, you’ll remove the eggs before they hatch and move underground to feed on the tree’s roots," according to Davey.