11 June 04
Lerps On The Loose
Yesterday after dinner I went for a walk along the creek, came to a eucalyptus with a fallen branch big to serve as a bench, sat down and noted that it had a heavy lerp infestation. Lerps are the whitish scaly secretions produced by a number of psyllid bugs native to Australia. In my sketch, the lerps are on the uppermost leaves. The species here, Glycaspis brimblecombei, the red gum lerp psyllid, is a new arrival to California, first being discovered in Los Angeles County in 1998 and spreading to 40 out of 58 counties in the state by June of 2000. They can cause heavy leaf drop among the eucalyptus species affected by it. The lerp secretions are sweet, similar to honeydew, and interestingly California insectivorous birds have taken to feeding on the infestations where they occur.
- We have a five acre ranch that has over 200 Red Gums on it. They are heavily infested with lerps. The tree’s are glistening with the lerps. What can we do to get rid of some of them. Are they harmful if they fall into your pool. Are they harmful to humans. Can we buy natural preditors for the tree’s? I raise arabian horses…..are the lerps harful to them if injested? We live in Linden, california, which is about 13 miles east of Stockton, California in the San Joaquin county. I do not think I have seen trees more heavily infested with these lerps then ours are. They are crunchy on the ground there are so many!! We bought our tree’s from the state Ag. Dept. The infestation started in about 2000….and it gets worse each year. They seem to hate the freeze. Thankyou.— WNG 16. July 2005, 14:14 Link
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