The alien-like cicadas that made an appearance this spring after spending 17 years in complete darkness are finally quieting down and are leaving trees and plants damaged.
Susan Hyland, Master Gardener coordinator with the Penn State Extension in Schuylkill County, said the plants and trees may be damaged, but they can still be saved.
"We are nearly finished with the drone of the cicada party," Hyland said. "Now at five and a half weeks from that first eruption, the woods are quieting down."
Hyland said that she can now see the results of the cicada egg laying on the trees.
"If this were winter, you might think that the tip ends of many of the trees have suffered frost damage because they have browned and drooped," she said. "If you pull one off and look, you will see that the damage is from the ovipositor of the female periodic cicadas. The tips die back as a pruning effect on the large trees."
Periodical cicadas are the cousins of katydids and crickets that have a unique breeding schedule and after 17 years of living underground, sucking the fluid out of the roots of trees and shrubs, they came up this spring in large groups all along the East Coast.
According to the Penn State Cooperative Extension, they typically begin emerging about the third week in May, when mature nymphs dig themselves out of the ground in great numbers, crawl to the nearest tree trunk, shrub or other vertical surface and climb several inches up.
The nymph's skin then splits down the back, and the winged, sexually mature adult emerges that is about 1 1/2 inches long, mostly black with red eyes and other reddish markings.
Hyland previously said that a week to 10 days after the males begin singing, the females begin to lay eggs and each female lays up to 400 eggs in 40 to 50 pockets in the wood of several small branches of many types of trees, which more than 75 species of trees are known to be attacked.
Cicadas typically damage many ornamental and hardwood trees and while oaks are commonly attacked, the most seriously damaged are newly planted fruit and ornamental trees such as apple, dogwood, peach, hickory, cherry and pear.
Pines and other conifers are not commonly attacked.
To lay eggs, a female slices into the wood of the branch with her egg-laying apparatus and places the egg into the wood. She usually lays one to several dozen eggs in a single branch before moving to another branch or tree.
Hyland said that the large damaged trees will put on new growth for approximately another month and the droopy brown ends will not be noticeable by end of summer.
"It is not a issue of concern at this time of year, the trees should recover," she said.
It's a different story for small plants though.
"Smaller plants that have been hard hit by the tip die back from the cicada activity and may need extra care, watering regularly and observation, to insure that they develop enough leaf mass to sustain their life through the summer," she said.
She recommends not using fertilizer until Labor Day and then "just a light application" of All Purpose Fertilizer 10-10-10 "to see them through the winter."