Protecting trees and shrubs from periodical cicada damage

There are several things you can do to prevent cicada damage to trees and shrubs in your landscape:

1. Avoid planting trees and shrubs the year before a periodical cicada emergence. Avoid planting trees and shrubs in the spring of an emergence year, too. If you do need to plant, choose plants that have a stem diameter of at least 2½ inches in diameter.
2. Place netting around small trees and shrubs (up to 10 feet tall), making sure it is secured around the base of the plant to prevent cicadas from crawling up the plant from the ground. The opening should be no larger than ¼ inch. It may be helpful to build a frame around the plants, cicadas may still be able to lay eggs on branches that are touching the netting. 
3. Twigs and branches that have had eggs laid in them can be pruned off to prevent the nymphs from reaching the ground and feeding. However, feeding by cicada nymphs does not seem to be harmful to the trees they feed on.
4. Insecticides are not recommended to manage periodical cicadas in home landscapes. Large, healthy trees are able to survive egg-laying with no long-term impacts (this has been happening for thousands of years). Insecticides are not as effective in protecting smaller trees and shrubs from cicadas as netting. Additionally, applying pesticides to control cicadas may harm other organisms, including animals that eat cicadas.
5. Cicada killer wasps won’t be of any help either. They emerge later in the year when annual or dogday cicadas emerge, and by that time, periodical cicada adults will be dead.

Source: extension.illinois.edu

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Author: Dennis Hickey

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