How to treat Silver Princess with caterpillar infestation?

[gamefisherman]

  

 

  

 

 

Many months ago we sought help as our silver princess had what we thought after discussion was a fungal infection. We deployed a number of different types of repeated treatments including fungal sprays, white oil spray, slow release anti fungal pellets, and seasol watered it. Anyway we thought it was working and was the cause of the discolouration of the leaves as seen in the photos that were posted in another string here by myself but I was wrong. It is not a fungal infection that is now the problem. The tree is infested by some kind of invasive species of caterpillar, or bug, or larvae. They have attached themselves to the branches inside their whitish/slightly brown cocoons that travel down the branches (see pictures). Today I pulled some off the branches as the trees leaves are quickly changing color (dying) see pictures for all example of the above mentioned issues. When I turned the cocoons over I noticed on the side attached to the branch there are live larvae or caterpillars living in them. The tree has also attracted a couple of different variety of flies and a very small yellow and black striped small fly as well, which is also signs of somethjng is majorly wrong. We absolutely love this tree but as white oil spray didn’t work we need to very quickly treat this insect infestation in the hope of saving the tree. Any ideas of what we should do and spray the tree with to combat and hopefully kill and save the tree from dying would be greatly appreciated. I will attach multiple photos so you can see the caterpillars, larvae, what they look like on the branches, pics of the dying leaves etc. Thanx in advance.

[JacobZ]

Hi @gamefisherman,

Thank you for your post. I am sorry to hear that your tree is not doing so well.

Is it possible to get another photo of the entire tree so we can see how it looks overall? As aggressive pruning might be an option to isolate and reduce the issues, this photo would certainly help 

The best thing I can suggest considering you've already tried white oil is to manually remove any cocoons, larvae, caterpillars or insects that are nesting in the tree and dispose of them. You could also give Eco-Neem Concentrate a try but it sounds like the infestation is quite severe and I'm not sure how much good this would do.

At this point, you may require the assistance of an arborist to ensure the right actions are taken as soon as possible to save your tree.

Allow me to tag @Noelle, @mich1972 and @robchin to see if they have any suggestions.

Jacob

[gamefisherman]

Thanx for your advice. I’ll buy some of that concentrate and give it a good spray.

[JacobZ]

Hi @gamefisherman,

Keep us in the loop on how things go. Any information you can provide could certainly be helpful for others in the future.

Jacob