Hoping someone can help identify what is infesting the bark of my dawn redwood. I just noticed these today after a large bout of rain in my area of the north east United States. The tree is starting to turn golden which I had assumed was due to falling temperatures however, my young dawn redwoods are still green. This is leading me to believe that this infestation may be worse than I thought. Any advice on what these are, and how to get rid of them would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Keith! Any recommendations on insecticides? I sprayed with a water/soap/neem oil mixture this morning but am not sure if that will be strong enough.
Has it worked? Aphids, like most insects take in oxygen through tiny pores on their body. So, if your solution has created a film over this they will eventually die. Neem oil is supposed to kill them so you may have to watch for a few days. I don’t know what insecticides are available in the States or is Dawn Redwood can take systemic. Might be worth googling…
Checked this morning and I couldn’t find any aphids. If there are more they are too tiny to see. I tried looking under leaves but the tree is rather large and bushy so hard to check.
So far so good. Hopefully they didn’t do too much damage. I’ll spray again tomorrow just to make sure.
Thanks for the insight and help identifying what they were. They appeared out of no where can’t believe how fast they colonize.
You could also try jetting them off with water which is another environmentally friendly way of doing it. Glad it seems to have worked. It sounds like you got most if not all. Try to encourage ladybirds and other aphid eating insects, they devour loads…
Id like to recommend trying a dish soap spray before you move into insecticides. A few drops of a high quality liquid dish soap in a spray bottle and you should be good. The soap film will suffocate the bugs. I had success this summer with a minor infestation.
Hey thanks for feedback. I ended up using a home made neem oil mixture that included soap. Seemed to do the trick.
I posted this to a forum Q+A and Ryan seemed unconcerned. Said they are likely not aphids, and that they only come out of soil to feed on decaying matter (bark in this case).
