Do you know what pest does this?

Mesquite

Treehouser
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Tucson AZ!
Im pruning a mesquite tree and i have found this on a couple of its limbs. Poking around; have found black beetles around but the holes in the tree look to small for them. The second the bettles are discovered they jump out of the tree and if i can find them the survive the 10 plus feet free fall. In one of them i explored i found what looked like tiny white eggs and the same size or smaller arachnid? Its hard to see cuz they are soo small but it looks like they have a circle body with four legs maybe i only found them once with what i think are eggs. What ever is doing this seems like it tunnels under the bark. I think what ever is going inside the limbs is something else. Its not termites but it almost looks like how they tunnel the wood ends up compartmentalizes and the wood on top is in little chunks that will fall righ off. Well, I think thats everything.

If you need any questions answered to help figure it out i will do my best. Thank you for your time
 

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  • #4
After further review i do think who is doing this is burrowing deeper than the surface. I can see quite a few holes going deeper. I have ran into a few of the little white egg looking things like in the picture. There was a tiny worm looking thing that was coming out of it maybe a larva? It almost looked like a meal worm but a 1/16 of an inch to 1/8 inch. It fell and was impossible to find. It looks like there is something in these little white things. After opening the shell there was a tiny little thing. Its in the pic but i think it was to small for my camera to pick up on it. But it looked completely different than the worm like thing. Maybe the worm thing was looking for a snack?

What would you do?

Im going to spray the infected looking area with neem oil and hope it kills what ever this is
 

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  • #6
The back beetles i have found look like powderpost beetles and are roughly 1/4 inch
 
I've successfully eradicated both Flathead borer and Ipps beetle infested trees, but it's an off label use of Sevin dust/powder, and therefore illegal, since carbaryl runoff is toxic to fish as well as bugs.

The method is mixing powder n water to a pancake like batter, which is then applied to one side of long six inch wide burlap strips, basically a six by six burlap tarp cut into six inch strips, with mud applied to one side, rolled up and hoisted aloft in a two gallon water bucket.

The main trunk structure and all laterals of serious size have to be wrapped completely with the mudslide against the bark.

It's expensive, painstakingly tedious n messy and illegal to boot.

But it works a charm IME.

Kills them bugs whether entering or leaving.

It was a phone conversation I had with Richard Harris telling me about his childhood growing up on an orchard.
He said his dad painted the trunks of every tree with a white thick paint containing the chemical Lindane, which became outlawed back in the sixties.

I just substituted Carbaryl for Lindane, both being pretty dang effective at killing insects.

Jomo
 
Ironically, Lindane is still used to treat head lice in children. It's not safe for your trees, though. Go figure.
 
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  • #14
i get it now ruel, like a Chupacabra but in tree form, im just a little slow at times. i looked up chupamesquite and personal vibrators came up, so i didnt know where you where trying to go with it.

im glad you said that GF, because it got me thinking in another direction. there is three more trees with in close proximity and no one else has this issue. this tree is the shortest out of them all and the lady said that the tree was thinned out quite a bit 2 years ago. and most of where the issue is, is on the southern and western facing limbs.

when a tree is sunburnt how deep does it affect the limb? is it just the bark that peals?

if you trim a tree and it puts out water sprouts like crazy along the area that you trimmed, could it be because its trying to shade itself to cool off? even if i cant see sunburn?


instead of using sevin, im thinking about going the Neem oil route. neem oil is an organic insecticide and fungicide.

has anyone had success with using something like this?


thank you to all for your time and input.
 
Maybe some pics of the whole tree showing the infected areas pointed out? Where I'm going with it, is it may not be worth the effort saving it, or perhaps mechanical removal of limbs with some temporary sun protection would be the way to go. I'm not qualified either way to give recommendations, but someone else here would be. It could also be used as a test bed for trying different chemical applications. I never seem to have luck using "natural" remedies for various things, but maybe the neem oil would work?
 
Sunburn kills the bark, sapwood begins rotting in the kill zone and the bugs move in.

I run across sunburn damage so many times in line clearance trimming. Usually end up removing the trees.
 
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  • #17
I don't know how to modify pictures on my phone. But from a distance the tree is beautiful. The damaged part of the limb I would say generally speaking would be in the middle third section of the limbs and there's probably five limbs that are affected and each affected area is from 2 to 3 ft long. There is a couple damaged limbs on the North side which is the left side of the tree and then a couple more damage limbs on the right side of the picture which is the south side. The limbs on the north side there was a gap in the canopy where they could have got sunburn from. As I mentioned earlier there are some holes tunneling in the wood and we have an issue with Flathead bores in this area that is completely separate and not the reason why this issue is happening in my opinion. Because you really can't even tell they are there until you cut off a limb or rarely there will be a wound that you can see holes in.

On a different note I have had great success with neem oil I have gotten rid of powder mold I think it was called. And numerous insect festations. And also if you ever get nats or fruit flies i indoor plants it will take care of them. I get the concentrated stuff because it works better in my opinion. I buy it online from the beauty section and i make sure its 100% neem oil and cold press. Up to 3oz or six tablespoons per gallon is what Captain Jack's neem oil directions say.
 

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