Caterpillar infestation in Bas-Saint-Laurent | Radio-Canada

Bas-Saint-Laurent is currently facing an infestation of forest caterpillars, caterpillars that are particularly fond of deciduous trees. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests confirms that this region is one of the most affected in the province with Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Several observers make the same observation on the ground. The owner of the company Exterminateur d’ici, which covers a vast territory from Rimouski to La Pocatière, says he receives enormously calls on this subject.

This year it’s really worse. Last year, I had maybe three or four clients [qui avaient des problèmes] of caterpillars. This year, it’s every day, several customers per day. One in two calls these days is really because of the caterpillarsbelieves Sylvain Pellerin.

Caterpillars eat leaves on trees and people don’t want to lose their treesadds the exterminator.

Mélanie Lamontagne, owner of the Fred Lamontagne garden center in Rimouski, confirms this trend. There were a lot of cases last week. People, while working on their land, found many caterpillars in their treesshe assures.

Biologist and director of operations at the Montreal company MBM Gestion parasitaire, Danie Rossignol explains that it is a cyclical phenomenon. has12 years old, we see a large number of caterpillars”,”text”:”Every 10 to 12 years old, we see a large number of caterpillars”}}”>Every 10 to 12 years, we see a large number of caterpillarsshe says.

She adds that the milder winter also favored this infestation.

We didn’t have a bad winter. There may be more eggs that survived, because the egg is laid in the fall on the branches, so if there are less cold winters, there may be more survival.

The forest caterpillar tends to eat the leaves of many deciduous trees. These are caterpillars that will strip the leaves of several species of trees, including aspen, yellow birch and in some places even sugar maple.describes Ms. Rossignol while specifying that the trees will remain healthy despite the passage of caterpillars.

This phenomenon begins at the beginning of May and lasts until mid-June, according to Ms. Rossignol. The forest tent caterpillars will then transform into butterflies from July onwards. From July to August, we are likely to see more beige or brown butterflies because there were a large number of caterpillars during the springshe notes.

Tips for countering forest tent caterpillar

Several ecological tips exist to protect trees from this invader, according to Ms. Rossignol.

I talked about insecticidal soap or water spray to make them fall off. But we can also put two-sided sticky strips that we can wrap around the base of our tree, or petroleum jelly, vaselineshe says.

We create a barrier at the bottom, so the caterpillars cannot climb higher in the tree to reach the leaves.adds Ms. Rossignol.

Mélanie Lamontagne also recommends installing plastic bags at the base of the tree and a pressure machine. so that it clicks.

With information from Camille Lacroix