As the weather and leaves are falling around the Ozarks, fall webworms have started to appear. It’s a familiar sight to see the ends of tree branches covered in an abundance of webbed nests, but don’t be alarmed.
Francis Skalicky, media specialist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, says the insects are harmless. In fact, it is their specific timing that prevents major issues.
“This time of year, the damage they are doing to the trees the trees can tolerate,” Skalicky said.
This is because the leaves they are eating are already in the end of their summer cycle. Fall webworms feed off of leaves that are either dead or dying.
“They form a web, eat the leaves, then they overwinter,” he said.
The final product of these quarter-inch webworms is a white moth with brown spots, which Skalicky says isn’t a disturbing pest either.
The biggest downside to these webworms is their tendency to eat all the fall-colored leaves that add to the aesthetic value of wooded areas this time of year. He said they tend to form webs on Walnut trees, but have been known to feed on up to 90 different species of deciduous trees in Missouri.
“Just because they are not doing damage to the trees, if you don’t like them, it doesn’t mean you can’t try to get rid of them,” he said.
But the Conservation Department cautions against trying to burn the webs out of the trees. Skalicky says this actually does more damage to the trees than the webworms could ever do.
He also says that pesticides might work, but are not specifically designed to kill one type of bug and might, in turn, harm the wrong or beneficial insects.
“The web clusters that you can reach, you can maybe with a stick or something, or a stick with some kind of nail in it, reach up there and tear those webs apart, because then the birds will get at the caterpillars,” he said.
Expect to see a plethora of webworms, leaf fragments and small caterpillar feces fall to the ground as the clusters are being torn apart. He said there is no need to take the entire web down; just enough of opening to allow birds to eat some of the insects.