You Thought It Was Apple-Picking Season

You Thought It Was Apple-Picking Season

Fall in Ohio means apple picking, pumpkin picking and, apparently, bagworm picking.

Never heard of that last one? Take a close look at your arborvitae, junipers, spruces and other landscape plants. If you see small, pinecone-like bags hanging from the branches, they may not be part of the plant. They could be bagworms.

What do bagworms look like?

Bagworms are caterpillars that destroy our plants when populations get out of control. They build protective silk bags and cover themselves with pieces of the plants they eat. The finished bags are typically 1.5 to 2.5 inches long and look like tiny pinecones or bundles of dried foliage.

It is excellent camouflage and the reason homeowners often overlook them until damage appears.

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Why are they a threat?

Bagworms feed on more than 125 species of evergreen and deciduous plants, but arborvitae, junipers, cedars, spruces and pines are frequent targets.

Heavy feeding can cause:

• Dead branches

• Permanent damage to evergreens

• The loss of an entire plant

The population can also grow quickly. A single female’s bag may hold between 500 and 1,000 eggs waiting to hatch next spring. Suddenly, picking a few bags doesn’t sound so strange.

What should you do now?

According to a September update from The Ohio State University’s Buckeye Yard & Garden Line, bagworms in our region have finished feeding and sealed themselves inside their bags.

That means spraying now will not work. The caterpillars are no longer eating treated foliage, and insecticides cannot penetrate their protective bags.

Instead, it is officially bagworm-picking season:

1. Inspect both evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs.

2. Remove every bag you can safely reach.

3. Pull or cut away the silk attaching it to the branch.

4. Step on the bag to squish the worms and place the bags in a sealable plastic bag before disposing of them. Don’t drop them beneath the plant or place them in an open compost pile.

PROTIP: We burn bag worms to ensure they do not return.

Removing the bags now helps prevent hundreds or potentially thousands of bagworms from appearing next spring. So, after you finish picking your apples and pumpkins, grab a pair of gloves and inspect your landscape.

Make a note for next spring

Bagworms typically begin hatching in Ohio around late May or early June, although timing changes with the weather. The young caterpillars are much easier to manage before their bags become large and protective.

If you find bags this fall, add a reminder to inspect those plants again next spring. Effective treatment depends heavily on timing, so early monitoring matters.

For now, skip the spray bottle, grab a pair of gloves and start looking closely. Those little “pinecones” may be holding next year’s problem.