It might be difficult - you would think - to take a dislike to a tree. It might also be difficult to think that university researchers would spend their time (and presumably someone's money) in studying such a dislike. But if you happen to be Mallorcan or happened to have been part of the education and citizenship department at the university in Palma, then it is less difficult to understand.
The pine tree. In a positive sense, it has lent its name to hotels, such as Sis Pins in Puerto Pollensa, Alcudia Pins in not-Alcudia, i.e. Playa de Muro; it was the subject of one of Mallorca's best-known poems - "El Pi de Formentor" (Miquel Costa i Llobera). It is touristically emblematic, as with the pinewalk of Puerto Pollensa, which probably vies with other emblematic sites on the island, such as the horse promontory of Cala San Vicente or Sa Foradada in Deya, as the most photographed of all. It gets chopped down, stripped, covered in soap, topped with a cock and climbed up during Pollensa's Sant Antoni fiestas, which might appear to be like taking the pee, but most definitely is not: the pollencin devotion to the pine in mid-January borders on the spiritual, as well as the alcoholic.
You'd think, therefore, that it was owed a bit more respect. Not so. Research findings that were issued some five years ago revealed that is disliked for being harmful to health, for causing forest fires, for preventing anything else growing, for the processionary caterpillar and for being ... foreign. Goodness, can xenophobia extends to trees? It would seem so, though where this leaves attitudes towards palm trees (which with one minor exception are all non-native), one isn't quite sure. And they, palm trees, are similarly susceptible to destructive forces, as we all too well know.
To what extent that the pine is a true native of Mallorca is probably irrelevant. It has been around for that long that it has gone native. Two species - the aleppo and the stone - are certainly of Mediterranean origin: the stone from the mainland of Spain. This latter tree is the one which gives the edible pine nuts, popular both in local cuisine and as a "nibble".
The tree's function as a resource is only grudgingly acknowledged, despite the fact that it has been - and is - a prime source of wood. It proliferates to such an extent that it constitutes around 80% of mountainous forest. Yet some would like to see it eliminated, something which must cause conservationists to have fits. Perhaps more than anything though, the pine is seen as being dirty, a view with which one can have some sympathy. Get some strong winds and rain, and down come the needles in great abundance. They cover the streets and gardens and gather on top of drains to the extent that they prevent water flushing away, thus causing flooding. The town halls, in that they do spend taxpayers' money wisely on street-cleaning, are mainly engaged in being needled by pines and clearing the gutters.
The negative attitudes towards the pine are such that the university researchers called for an educative process to correct erroneous views and misapprehensions. Everyone needed to learn to love the pine, to hug one daily, the only problem with this being that a trail of caterpillars might be meandering towards you while you are in the process of hugging.
Whether this five-year-old research had any impact is hard to say. One isn't aware of there having been any educative campaigns, but since then the pine has managed to assume some political significance. There is a party named after it - El Pi - which even has a sort of pine as its logo. However, might the fact that El Pi hasn't been scooping up places in the Balearic parliament have something to do with this apparent latent dislike of the pine that is lurking in the Mallorcan subconscious?
So, was this research worth the effort? The leader of El Pi, Jaume Font, clearly paid it little attention. But then research is often worthy for simply being research. As with figs. The fig tree doesn't attract the sort of resentment that the pine apparently does. And what grows on it is delicious. But were you were aware of the little-known world of fig reproduction? If you were, then to your rescue comes a book which deals with fig sexuality, research that has been partly sponsored by the regional agriculture ministry. We all love a fig, and now we know about its love life as well. Which doesn't help the poor old pine though. Still, for pine lovers, admiration for the tree will be at its greatest today. In Puerto Pollensa and Pollensa. The pines of Formentor and Ternelles will have been raised, and what else does one do with a tree, other than climb it.
Showing posts with label Pine trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pine trees. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
Spraying The Caterpillars
There are an awful lot of pine trees on Mallorca, and so there are an awful lot of caterpillars. There are ways and means of tackling the pest, but one means - that of chemical spraying - has come in for severe criticism. The regional government's environment ministry is to undertake widespread spraying from the air during this month and during November.
The chemical that will be used is the diflubenzuron pesticide, known also by its brand name, Dimilin. This is a pesticide whose use has proved controversial and not just in the Balearics. For example, in the US state of New Jersey in 2007 environmental groups managed to overturn a decision by the state's department of agriculture to use Dimilin to tackle what was an emergency brought about by a sudden rise in the gypsy moth population. For over twenty years, New Jersey had used a biological pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.). The agriculture department considered this to be inadequate in tackling the emergency, despite the department itself admitting that B.t. afforded good protection for foliage and other species and for control of the gypsy moth population.
Opposition to the use of Dimilin was based on different factors. One, it was unclear whether it would in fact be any more effective than B.t. Two, it could kill other insects. Three, it could have a harmful effect on bird life. Four, it could introduce toxicity for water life. Five, one of its elements was, in all probability, a class B2 human carcinogen. Six, Dimilin was also a hormone disruptor that could harmfully affect both human and animal endocrine systems, in other words the way in which hormones are secreted into the body's circulatory system.
In New Jersey they had stopped using a different pesticide in 1985 because of its potentially harmful human effects. In Mallorca the use of Dimilin was banned by the first Antich PSOE-led government of 1999-2003. It hasn't been used in Mallorca since. Instead, the biological pesticide B.t. has been used. Now, the regional government is changing tack, and there is an outcry from environmental groups and certain political parties.
According to a spokesperson for the Més political grouping, the so-called "Company campaign" (named after the minister for both the environment and agriculture) will, through the use of Dimilin, be more expensive than alternatives and have a greater environmental impact. The cost of the spraying, some two million euros, has not been budgeted for, leading to questions over the awarding of a contract for the spraying. The environmentalist group GOB has attacked the use of Dimilin, noting a regional environmental sustainability report which says that it is not recommended for large-scale spraying on account of its indiscriminate effects; the government plans to spray more than 24,000 hectares of pine forest on Mallorca.
GOB has submitted a written report to the European Commission, drawing attention to a possible breach of a directive on the conservation of natural habitats and flora and fauna and to the regional government environment ministry going against its own sustainability report. GOB notes that the directive requires there to be an impact assessment of the use of pesticides. It further notes that there has been no such impact assessment in respect of Mallorca or indeed the other three Balearic Islands, where pine forests will also be sprayed.
The university in Palma has entered the controversy by concluding that Dimilin does not affect other insects, while it has been noted that there was limited use of Dimilin in Ibiza in 2010, permission for this having been given by the then environment minister, Gabriel Vicens, a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists, who are part of what is now the Més grouping.
So, what do we conclude? Are Dimilin's potentially harmful effects being exaggerated? In New Jersey it seems they took them seriously enough. In Mallorca, however, they are deemed less serious. And who would bet against there being the trails of caterpillars next March, Dimilin or no Dimilin?
Photo: http://mallorcaphotoblog.com/2011/03/08/the-processionary-caterpillar/
Friday, September 20, 2013
The Loathsome Pine: Forest management
One of the more peculiar pieces of research that has emanated from the university in Palma over the years was one that was published over three years ago which looked at just how much the pine tree was disliked by Mallorcans. The reasons for this "hate" were: pines can be harmful to health; they can prevent other flora growing; they house the processionary caterpillar; they are dirty in that their needles clog up drains when it rains and demand an enormous amount of sweeping-up and that their pollen turns everywhere a shade of yellowy-green in spring. There were two other reasons for the dislike. One was irrational. The pine is "foreign", which is something of a moot point but if it is true then palm trees should also be hated. The other was rational. The great abundance of pines help to spread forest fires.
The university's researchers discovered that, far from there being wholesale support for the pine tree, many a Mallorcan would be only too happy if the pine were to be sent packing, which would be a pretty difficult feat of forest destruction as at least 80% of mountainous forest is pine.
Gabriel Company, the Balearics environment minister, might do worse than to drag this research out. He has said that the notion that the pine tree is "untouchable" has to change. He was speaking as part of a hearing by a parliamentary commission into the devastating fire that affected the Tramuntana mountains in July. His point was that there needs to be greater control of pine-tree growth, which means cutting trees down as a way of improving forest management and so reducing the risks of fires spreading. The research would suggest that it wouldn't necessarily be that difficult to change the "untouchable" notion.
Sadness accompanied the July fire. It was sadness at the scenes of desolation, ones that are all too familiar if not anything like on the same scale. It was sadness at the loss of pine forests and at the realisation that it could take up to eighty years for the landscapes to be restored. But much though people pined for the loss of the pines, there were those who could have predicted the devastation. Hating the pines for their very density and so their potential to spread fires rapidly does not mean their elimination, or anything like it, but it does mean that there should be better management. And some would say that any management would be better than what has existed. Very little.
Critics of Company will argue that his call for there to be greater control is all a bit late and that it is a call which ignores other issues, such as cutbacks to forestry workers. And there is some justification for criticising the lack of proactive management of the forests. A spokesperson for the PSOE opposition has accused Company of only becoming interested in the Tramuntana and its maintenance since the fire occurred and has wondered whatever happened to a forestry plan that was announced by President Bauzá in 2011 and which was meant to have been approved last year. Friends of the Earth had asked the same question a year before the Andratx fire, and I, in an article written in the aftermath of the fire ("The Impotence Of Fire"), repeated the question.
There needs to be a comprehensive plan for forest management. It is remarkable that there has never been one for the Balearics, and the absence of one reflects badly on politicians who have been happy to bask in the glories of the mountain woodland patrimony of Mallorca and the Balearics while at the same time doing very little to preserve it adequately.
It needs to include - a point made to the parliamentary hearing by a spokesperson for the Més grouping - a strategy for biomass. I have suggested that it is unlikely that this would be used in any meaningful fashion as a renewable energy source in the Balearics, but it used elsewhere as it is gathered for export. Removal of biomass can be productive and it can also help, as with better management of trees, with reducing the spread of fire, but it also serves a function in soil regeneration, so it needs its own specific management.
If anything good has come as a result of the fire, it will be that a comprehensive plan will be put in place. But it can't just kept on being put back. It is long, long overdue.
The university's researchers discovered that, far from there being wholesale support for the pine tree, many a Mallorcan would be only too happy if the pine were to be sent packing, which would be a pretty difficult feat of forest destruction as at least 80% of mountainous forest is pine.
Gabriel Company, the Balearics environment minister, might do worse than to drag this research out. He has said that the notion that the pine tree is "untouchable" has to change. He was speaking as part of a hearing by a parliamentary commission into the devastating fire that affected the Tramuntana mountains in July. His point was that there needs to be greater control of pine-tree growth, which means cutting trees down as a way of improving forest management and so reducing the risks of fires spreading. The research would suggest that it wouldn't necessarily be that difficult to change the "untouchable" notion.
Sadness accompanied the July fire. It was sadness at the scenes of desolation, ones that are all too familiar if not anything like on the same scale. It was sadness at the loss of pine forests and at the realisation that it could take up to eighty years for the landscapes to be restored. But much though people pined for the loss of the pines, there were those who could have predicted the devastation. Hating the pines for their very density and so their potential to spread fires rapidly does not mean their elimination, or anything like it, but it does mean that there should be better management. And some would say that any management would be better than what has existed. Very little.
Critics of Company will argue that his call for there to be greater control is all a bit late and that it is a call which ignores other issues, such as cutbacks to forestry workers. And there is some justification for criticising the lack of proactive management of the forests. A spokesperson for the PSOE opposition has accused Company of only becoming interested in the Tramuntana and its maintenance since the fire occurred and has wondered whatever happened to a forestry plan that was announced by President Bauzá in 2011 and which was meant to have been approved last year. Friends of the Earth had asked the same question a year before the Andratx fire, and I, in an article written in the aftermath of the fire ("The Impotence Of Fire"), repeated the question.
There needs to be a comprehensive plan for forest management. It is remarkable that there has never been one for the Balearics, and the absence of one reflects badly on politicians who have been happy to bask in the glories of the mountain woodland patrimony of Mallorca and the Balearics while at the same time doing very little to preserve it adequately.
It needs to include - a point made to the parliamentary hearing by a spokesperson for the Més grouping - a strategy for biomass. I have suggested that it is unlikely that this would be used in any meaningful fashion as a renewable energy source in the Balearics, but it used elsewhere as it is gathered for export. Removal of biomass can be productive and it can also help, as with better management of trees, with reducing the spread of fire, but it also serves a function in soil regeneration, so it needs its own specific management.
If anything good has come as a result of the fire, it will be that a comprehensive plan will be put in place. But it can't just kept on being put back. It is long, long overdue.
Friday, May 04, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Nematode threat to pine trees
A type of nematode worm that attacks pines is the latest threat to Mallorca's trees. Measures are to be taken to prevent the spread of the worm which was first detected in Portugal in 1999, having come from North America.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Don't Be Cold, Don't Be Angry To Me
The 1970s were responsible for some real horrors perpetrated in the name of music. Pilot were not in the A-list of offenders, but they did bequeath us "January" and memory of a lead singer who looked like a girly Peter Marinello, which was saying something, given that the new George Best appeared to have stepped out of Pan's People.
"Don't be cold, don't be angry to me." I'm all in favour of obscure lyrics, but how does a month display its anger? And why is it angry "to" me? Wrong preposition. But nevertheless, now I think of it, it is - a month being angry - rather poetic. Pilot were the new Wordsworths. Well, maybe not.
January isn't usually angry. But it stores up trouble. It is the month to reconnoitre the tree tops. You wander lonely staring at clouds, but in fact at the pines, their branches crowned with the coconut shies of the caterpillars' furry, testicular wombs. Through the needles, though, you see only blue sky, for this January is like so many - alarmingly warm and bright. Don't be cold with me; not at the moment it isn't.
The warmth, however, is the threat of trouble being stored up for when the weather breaks and for when the caterpillar nests also break and tip their crawling caravans earthwards. In the lonely days of January, the cats can sleak around and scavenge undisturbed, but then they come across the caterpillars. From the litters of moths to the litter of a cat prone on the ground, feigning sleep but in fact stone cold dead.
You make me sad with your eyes. I'm not so sure it does. September is the sad month. January's melancholic, but because of its silence. Until it bursts into flames. The eyes of January look down on the fires of mid-month and on the beasties that roam the villages and towns spitting the sparklers of Sant Antoni. January, the curious month when fiesta has no right to occur but does so in an incendiary fashion that is more pyrotechnic than the summer fireworks; more pyrotechnic because houses, whole streets are in the line of fire.
The month's eyes cast a glance also at how the shorelines shift with the wind. Beaches' edges are moulded and sculpted by the sea's changes in direction and by the harvesting of marine crops that form bulges and mounds which, from a distance, appear as rocky outcrops newly exposed by displaced sand but are the abstract grotesques of packed seaweed and posidonia. The eyes watch as you bounce along the trampolines of the springy and spongy sand topped with its ocean scrap.
You're telling me lies. This is what makes you worry about January. It's what it's telling you about what's to come. It cascades from the skies at the stroke of the new year with the cheer of optimism, but it can be deceitful and deceiving. What's to come? The clear skies of January can just as easily become the dark clouds of gloom, but unlike an English January when you slowly count off the days to the onset of spring, here you might hope for its delay. January doesn't tarry though. It rushes in the spring and thoughts of the season with the swiftness and surprise of a bore racing along an estuary. Maybe it's an illusion, but no; the days are already longer. And then suddenly January's gone. Don't go, don't go.
Why would you not want it to go? January is non-month, it barely exists other than to be set light to. But this is what makes it the month that it is. Because when it's gone, the pretend time of fiesta and holiday from early December goes with it. And things begin to start all over again. The never-ending cycle and repetition of Mallorca's months and seasons.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
"Don't be cold, don't be angry to me." I'm all in favour of obscure lyrics, but how does a month display its anger? And why is it angry "to" me? Wrong preposition. But nevertheless, now I think of it, it is - a month being angry - rather poetic. Pilot were the new Wordsworths. Well, maybe not.
January isn't usually angry. But it stores up trouble. It is the month to reconnoitre the tree tops. You wander lonely staring at clouds, but in fact at the pines, their branches crowned with the coconut shies of the caterpillars' furry, testicular wombs. Through the needles, though, you see only blue sky, for this January is like so many - alarmingly warm and bright. Don't be cold with me; not at the moment it isn't.
The warmth, however, is the threat of trouble being stored up for when the weather breaks and for when the caterpillar nests also break and tip their crawling caravans earthwards. In the lonely days of January, the cats can sleak around and scavenge undisturbed, but then they come across the caterpillars. From the litters of moths to the litter of a cat prone on the ground, feigning sleep but in fact stone cold dead.
You make me sad with your eyes. I'm not so sure it does. September is the sad month. January's melancholic, but because of its silence. Until it bursts into flames. The eyes of January look down on the fires of mid-month and on the beasties that roam the villages and towns spitting the sparklers of Sant Antoni. January, the curious month when fiesta has no right to occur but does so in an incendiary fashion that is more pyrotechnic than the summer fireworks; more pyrotechnic because houses, whole streets are in the line of fire.
The month's eyes cast a glance also at how the shorelines shift with the wind. Beaches' edges are moulded and sculpted by the sea's changes in direction and by the harvesting of marine crops that form bulges and mounds which, from a distance, appear as rocky outcrops newly exposed by displaced sand but are the abstract grotesques of packed seaweed and posidonia. The eyes watch as you bounce along the trampolines of the springy and spongy sand topped with its ocean scrap.
You're telling me lies. This is what makes you worry about January. It's what it's telling you about what's to come. It cascades from the skies at the stroke of the new year with the cheer of optimism, but it can be deceitful and deceiving. What's to come? The clear skies of January can just as easily become the dark clouds of gloom, but unlike an English January when you slowly count off the days to the onset of spring, here you might hope for its delay. January doesn't tarry though. It rushes in the spring and thoughts of the season with the swiftness and surprise of a bore racing along an estuary. Maybe it's an illusion, but no; the days are already longer. And then suddenly January's gone. Don't go, don't go.
Why would you not want it to go? January is non-month, it barely exists other than to be set light to. But this is what makes it the month that it is. Because when it's gone, the pretend time of fiesta and holiday from early December goes with it. And things begin to start all over again. The never-ending cycle and repetition of Mallorca's months and seasons.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
The Lonesome Pine: Hug a tree today
It might be difficult - you would think - to take a dislike to a tree. It might also be difficult to think that university researchers would spend their time (and presumably someone's money) in studying such a dislike. But if you happen to be Mallorcan or happen to be part of the education and citizenship department at the university in Palma, then it is less difficult to understand.
The poor old pine tree. It has lent its name to hotels - Sis Pins in Puerto Pollensa, Alcúdia Pins in not-Alcúdia, i.e. Playa de Muro; it gets chopped down, stripped, covered in soap, topped with a cock and climbed up during Pollensa's Sant Antoni fiesta; it was the subject of one of Mallorca's best-known poems - "El Pi de Formentor" (Costa i Llobera): sorry, Mallorca's only well-known poem.
You'd think, therefore, it was owed a bit more respect. Not so. It is "hated", suggests a piece from "The Diario", for being harmful to health, for causing (?) forest fires, for preventing anything else growing, for the processionary caterpillar and for being ... foreign. Ah yes, where were we on that Mallorcan xenophobia? It even extends to trees, though where this leaves attitudes towards palm trees (which with one minor exception are all non-native), one isn't quite sure. And they, palm trees, are similarly susceptible to destructive forces, as we now know with the palm beetle.
To what extent the pine is a true native of Mallorca is probably irrelevant. It has been around for that long that it has gone native. Two species - the aleppo and the stone - are certainly of Mediterranean origin; the stone from the mainland of Spain. This latter tree is the one which gives the edible pine nuts, popular both in local cuisine and as a "nibble".
The tree's function as a resource is only grudgingly acknowledged, despite the fact that it has been - and is - a prime source of wood. It proliferates to such an extent that it constitutes around 80% of mountainous forest. Yet some would like to see it eliminated, something which must cause conservationists and eco-warrior groups such as GOB to have fits and get out of their trees. Perhaps more than anything though, the pine is seen as being "dirty", a view with which one can have some sympathy. Get some strong winds and rain, and down come the needles in great abundance. They cover the streets and gardens and gather on top of drains to the extent that they prevent water flushing away, thus causing flooding; the town halls, in that they do spend taxpayers' money wisely on street-cleaning, are mainly engaged in being needled by pines and clearing the gutters.
The negative attitudes towards the pine are such that the university researchers are calling for an educative process to correct erroneous views and misapprehensions. We will all need to learn to love the pine, to hug** one daily. Until, that is, caterpillars fall onto our necks and sting us or the drains get blocked.
This is "El Pi de Formentor" set to music and sung by the Mallorcan, Maria del Mar Bonet:
** And "The Diario" did indeed show us how to hug a tree in its article. Go here:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/04/07/mallorquines-odiamos-pinos/559537.html
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Ricky Martin, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfhT1OW7cUQ
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The poor old pine tree. It has lent its name to hotels - Sis Pins in Puerto Pollensa, Alcúdia Pins in not-Alcúdia, i.e. Playa de Muro; it gets chopped down, stripped, covered in soap, topped with a cock and climbed up during Pollensa's Sant Antoni fiesta; it was the subject of one of Mallorca's best-known poems - "El Pi de Formentor" (Costa i Llobera): sorry, Mallorca's only well-known poem.
You'd think, therefore, it was owed a bit more respect. Not so. It is "hated", suggests a piece from "The Diario", for being harmful to health, for causing (?) forest fires, for preventing anything else growing, for the processionary caterpillar and for being ... foreign. Ah yes, where were we on that Mallorcan xenophobia? It even extends to trees, though where this leaves attitudes towards palm trees (which with one minor exception are all non-native), one isn't quite sure. And they, palm trees, are similarly susceptible to destructive forces, as we now know with the palm beetle.
To what extent the pine is a true native of Mallorca is probably irrelevant. It has been around for that long that it has gone native. Two species - the aleppo and the stone - are certainly of Mediterranean origin; the stone from the mainland of Spain. This latter tree is the one which gives the edible pine nuts, popular both in local cuisine and as a "nibble".
The tree's function as a resource is only grudgingly acknowledged, despite the fact that it has been - and is - a prime source of wood. It proliferates to such an extent that it constitutes around 80% of mountainous forest. Yet some would like to see it eliminated, something which must cause conservationists and eco-warrior groups such as GOB to have fits and get out of their trees. Perhaps more than anything though, the pine is seen as being "dirty", a view with which one can have some sympathy. Get some strong winds and rain, and down come the needles in great abundance. They cover the streets and gardens and gather on top of drains to the extent that they prevent water flushing away, thus causing flooding; the town halls, in that they do spend taxpayers' money wisely on street-cleaning, are mainly engaged in being needled by pines and clearing the gutters.
The negative attitudes towards the pine are such that the university researchers are calling for an educative process to correct erroneous views and misapprehensions. We will all need to learn to love the pine, to hug** one daily. Until, that is, caterpillars fall onto our necks and sting us or the drains get blocked.
This is "El Pi de Formentor" set to music and sung by the Mallorcan, Maria del Mar Bonet:
** And "The Diario" did indeed show us how to hug a tree in its article. Go here:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/04/07/mallorquines-odiamos-pinos/559537.html
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Ricky Martin, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfhT1OW7cUQ
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, January 07, 2008
When Mama Was Moth
Just a word about the weather. Yesterday was truly magnificent. It is a surprise that January can produce such fine weather, but it does, and pretty much every year it serves it up. Warm and sunny (around 18), the holiday walk along the beach should have been done in shorts and flip-flops not jeans and trainers with socks; it raised a fair old sweat. The sea was flat calm and the sand firm, an indication of a lack of recent wave turbulence. Absolutely blissful.
Less blissful though is one of the natural-world’s irritants that raises its ugly head, well ugly body, at this time of the year. The processionary caterpillar* is a creature of southern and central Europe though it is migrating north. It is a thoroughly unpleasant bit of insect life that offers a dual malevolence – to trees and to humans. It is during the first couple of months of the year that it becomes a real pest.
(*So-called as colonies of individual caterpillars attach themselves to the ones in the front.)
The deal with this caterpillar is that it is moth larva, spawned by the moth that those bags you might see hanging around in forests are there to catch. The moths need to be taken off the streets – as it were – to stop them producing the caterpillars. Not only do the caterpillars cause great harm to pine trees, they also have a nasty habit of falling out of the trees and poisoning passing humans. If you happen to see any army of brown, furry-looking caterpillars forming a caravan, on no account touch them. One of the best treatments for them – gruesome though it may sound – is to set fire to them. The devastation that the caterpillar can cause to trees (and the oak is also susceptible to a different caterpillar) is akin to that wreaked by the beetle responsible for the fungus of Dutch elm disease. The poison emitted can cause serious skin reactions.
Avoiding the little buggers is a bit tricky. Go for a walk in a forested area here (or indeed just down many a road), and there will be numerous pine trees ready to dispatch the caterpillars. Daft though it might sound, a hat and keeping skin covered up is a wise precaution if walking in forests in January and February. Don’t hug a hoodie, wear one.
One way of trying to short-circuit the problems they cause is to shoot them down (and then deal with them), and this does indeed happen, so if you hear gun shots going off, it could well be a whole bunch of caterpillars – a sort of land-based equivalent of jellyfish – being blasted.
Apparently, there is also meant to be some spraying going on to kill the caterpillars. If this is from the air, which I understand it is, then a question is why not do this for the mosquitoes? A reason for stopping that spraying was the ecological impact. There again, mosquitoes don’t harm trees. Something’s wrong here I feel.
QUIZ
Yesterday – CCS (Alexis Korner). Today’s title – real personal indulgence here; one of my “favourites” from my profile did this.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Less blissful though is one of the natural-world’s irritants that raises its ugly head, well ugly body, at this time of the year. The processionary caterpillar* is a creature of southern and central Europe though it is migrating north. It is a thoroughly unpleasant bit of insect life that offers a dual malevolence – to trees and to humans. It is during the first couple of months of the year that it becomes a real pest.
(*So-called as colonies of individual caterpillars attach themselves to the ones in the front.)
The deal with this caterpillar is that it is moth larva, spawned by the moth that those bags you might see hanging around in forests are there to catch. The moths need to be taken off the streets – as it were – to stop them producing the caterpillars. Not only do the caterpillars cause great harm to pine trees, they also have a nasty habit of falling out of the trees and poisoning passing humans. If you happen to see any army of brown, furry-looking caterpillars forming a caravan, on no account touch them. One of the best treatments for them – gruesome though it may sound – is to set fire to them. The devastation that the caterpillar can cause to trees (and the oak is also susceptible to a different caterpillar) is akin to that wreaked by the beetle responsible for the fungus of Dutch elm disease. The poison emitted can cause serious skin reactions.
Avoiding the little buggers is a bit tricky. Go for a walk in a forested area here (or indeed just down many a road), and there will be numerous pine trees ready to dispatch the caterpillars. Daft though it might sound, a hat and keeping skin covered up is a wise precaution if walking in forests in January and February. Don’t hug a hoodie, wear one.
One way of trying to short-circuit the problems they cause is to shoot them down (and then deal with them), and this does indeed happen, so if you hear gun shots going off, it could well be a whole bunch of caterpillars – a sort of land-based equivalent of jellyfish – being blasted.
Apparently, there is also meant to be some spraying going on to kill the caterpillars. If this is from the air, which I understand it is, then a question is why not do this for the mosquitoes? A reason for stopping that spraying was the ecological impact. There again, mosquitoes don’t harm trees. Something’s wrong here I feel.
QUIZ
Yesterday – CCS (Alexis Korner). Today’s title – real personal indulgence here; one of my “favourites” from my profile did this.
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