Gouty oak wasp

Mighty oaks fall prey to tiny wasps<br />
<br />
This is gonna be big business soon along with the Asian carp infestation and honeybee colony collapse disorder.
Attachment 168032Attachment 168033

What do they look like?

Attachment 168094

Not safe to be out in the yard anymore. Dang tough on mowers. Falling limb shattered pickup windshield awhile back too. Getting to be epidemic here.

For years there have been other wasps that "stung" oak leafs and branches, but the result was always much less dramatic than this. They did so as a means of depositing their eggs, and it resulted in a more succulent green-changing-to-reddish gall. This "new" disease is much more damaging. As a forester I first noticed it about ten years ago on shingle oaks (Quercus imbricaria), but it soon spread to pin oaks (Quercus palustris)-not trying to be a smarty, but using these names is the only true way of correctly identifying the exact species. These are still the primary species affected, but I'm now seeing other members of the red oak family (those oaks which have pointed lobes on their leaf rather than rounded lobes) affected. This spreads to other limbs by the rainfall splashing the spores and by birds transferring it as they move from an infected branch to a healthy branch. The "knot" pictured by Gone Fishin causes the branch to die from that point outward and then eventually back to the trunk. The entire tree will eventually succumb to this disease, and it is becoming an economic drain on bottomland oaks. I'm no longer an active forester, but from what I still read there are treatments available for "landscape trees", but they are at best only somewhat effective and very expensive needing to be repeated annually.

Good to know I'm not the only nut in the tree justfishin. This chit is getting serious. Attachment 168165

Yeah, I have to pick them up every time the wind blows or I run the risk of hitting them with the mower-already have several holes in the vinyl siding where they hit the house. I read the article in The Southern Illinoisan. It was informative, but it didn't hint at the economic loss this will cause to the timber resource of the region. I wonder, too, of the long term effect on wildlife. Ducks, especially, love the small acorns of the pin oak, and I've seen a lot of deer utilizing the shingle oaks when other oak species are not producing a good mast crop. Seems like so many of the native species have been adversely affected by things that weren't a problem 20 years ago.

Wish I had a crappie for every one that I picked up in my mothers yard.