Just don't eat too many.
Posted on 01/13/2024 3:32:23 AM PST by week 71
Tennessee is set for a storm of cicadas not witnessed in more than 200 years.
The nosey, red-eyed winged insects hibernate in either 13- or 17-year cycles, but the state will soon be buzzing with both - and experts have predicted there will be one million per acre of land.
The infestation will likely see hundreds, if not thousands, of trees 'damaged beyond recovery,' a professor at Tennessee Tech University has warned.
The last time these two groups, Brood XIII and Brood XIX, co-emerged was in 1803, the same year as the Louisiana Purchase and when Thomas Jefferson was president.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
@ 54 I’m not an entomologist so don’t know. It’s falsifiable, so folks will know this summer. When just one of cycles came up where I lived years ago there were literally three-inch piles of dead ones under the trees.
My dogs ate them like they were doggy treats.
Treat all of your vulnerable trees with a systemic poison. I use implants that are drilled into the cambrium, it makes all leaves and the cambrium poisonous. Eggs hatch and die.
@ 63 - chuckled out loud! I think the 13 year cycle is up where I live this summer. Will see if my dogs treats them as a delicacy on her palate then.
I was a kid in VA 1959-1963 and we had an emergence then. It was fascinating to a 9 year old. We moved south and out of range in 1963 so I never saw them again.
Looks like I will see them next year here in Kentucky.
Of the critters that prey on cicadas, the best are Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large, solitary digger wasp species, specifically the eastern cicada killer.
It might be possible to have a mass breeding and release just as the cicadas come out. Likewise a release of birds and eastern Red Bats, though I imagine these are much harder to breed in substantial numbers.
We had a bad year for chiggers this past summer in KY.
I quit weeding the beds around the house this summer because I got so tired of getting chewed up. Damn itchy welts last for several weeks with me. They always get up into my upper thighs and groin. Nothing alleviates the itching.
It did. Cicada outbreaks are regional. If you're not in the region, you'll see/hear nothing.
There are different varieties. The annual cicadas emerge in late summer, in areas that have them. They're larger than the long-period cicadas, and have green eyes. The long-period cicadas (7 year, 13, year, 17 year, whatever) have red eyes and are usually far more numerous than the annual variety.
Different. Those are annual summer cicadas that come out in August here in Indiana. The 17- & 13-year guys come out in the millions and are deafening for about 2-3 weeks. They damage a lot of trees, though most mature ones survive. Been through 5 17-year blasts the worst being 2004 where we live. We were ground zero.
It happens at different times in different locations. Central Indiana got hit in 2021 by the 17-year group.
I was telling my husband about them this morning and at this point, with him bedridden, they can kill all they want to kill. I can barely keep up with all of the yard work now on this big old place and my son-in-law does most of it. I mow and take care of the yard around the house and he and my daughter take care of the other acreage.
I’m at the point where I say let them eat. Hopefully my garden will be in by then and they might even help me get rid of stuff so that I don’t have to keep trimming. I hope they eat the invasive plants like English Ivy, Kudzu, Forsythia, Honeysuckles, Morning Glories, and other things I can’t get ahead of, after my garden is done of course.
food source
harvest time
best in gravy
I haven’t seen those here.
Just don't eat too many.
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