[Title Slide] Agriculture in Logan County, Lance Kirkpatrick Extension Agent – Agriculture.

[Lance Kirkpatrick] Are your trees carrying excess baggage? Hello, I’m Lance Kirkpatrick, Extension Agent - Logan County. Today I’m going to be discussing a rather interesting caterpillar called the common bagworm.

Bagworm is a term often loosely used to describe several caterpillars we see in trees across Arkansas. [Picture of an Eastern Tent Caterpillar]  Many times the Eastern Tent Caterpillar and the [Picture of a Fall Webworm Caterpillar]   Fall Webworm are mistakenly called bagworms. [Pictures of bags in trees]   Although these caterpillars do build unique bag-like structures, only the bagworm is responsible for building the distinctive spindle-shaped bags on a variety of trees and shrubs throughout Arkansas.

Bagworms attack both deciduous and evergreen trees, but are especially damaging to juniper, arborvitae, spruce, pine and cedar. [Pictures of bags in a pine tree] When present in large populations, bagworms can completely strip a tree or shrub of its foliage eventually leading to the death of the plant. [Picture of dead trees stripped of leaves] The unique design of this caterpillar’s bag often blends with its host tree leaving infestations to be mistaken as pine cones or other plant structures. [Picture of caterpillar’s bag]

Egg, Larva, Pupa and adult are the four stages in a typical life cycle of the Bagworm. [Picture of eggs]  Eggs overwinter firmly attached to the to the host plant inside the female’s old bag. [Picture of female’s old bag] Sometime in May the eggs hatch and the larvae leave the bag in search of food. [Picture of newly hatched bagworms]  When larvae [Picture of larvae] find a suitable place, they spin their silken bag and attach plant parts to the bag for camouflage. The larvae [Picture of larvae and bags]  continue feeding and growing until their constructed bag is about 1 to 1 ½ inches long. By late summer [Picture of bag attached to a tree] or early fall the mature larva attaches its bag to the host tree and molts into the pupa stage. [Picture of bagworm pupa]  This is the most inactive stage of the bagworm’s life cycle. No feeding occurs during this time and the pupa is normally incapable of moving. This stage is completed in the fall when the adult males begin to emerge. [Picture of adult male moth]

It is rare to see male bagworms in the adult stage. [Picture of adult male moths] They are mostly nocturnal and only the males develop into what we call typical moths capable of flight. Males are black, furry, clear-winged moths with a wingspan of about 1.5 inches long. The adult female changes very little from her larval state, she is wingless and off-white in color. [Picture of adult female larvae]  The female’s sole purpose is reproductive and for this reason she stays in the bag producing a pheromone to attract males. [Picture of adult male moths on bags]  After mating the female of some bagworm species will lay several hundred eggs inside the bag [Picture of eggs]  and eventually drop from the bag and die. With other bagworm species the female lays her eggs within the bag and dies without leaving the bag.

[Picture of bags on trees] Bagworm control can be difficult to achieve since infestations often go unnoticed until the mature stage. When possible, handpick the overwintering bags and dispose of them in a manner which will not allow the eggs to hatch. [Picture of Lance hand picking bags off of trees]  Dropping them on the ground or throwing them in your landscape will give the bagworm caterpillars the opportunity to infest other trees once they have hatched. [Picture of bags in trees] When many small bagworms infest trees, insecticides may be necessary. The best time to apply insecticides is while the larvae [Picture of larvae] are still small (usually less than ½ -inch long). Homeowners who think they may have bagworms [Picture of bagworms on trees]  should inspect susceptible landscape plants for last year’s bags or look for young bagworms. Young bagworms [Picture of bagworms] are difficult to see but will be small, upright bags which have the appearance of tiny ice cream cones.