Horse Chestnut trees, Aesculus hippocastanum , are very large deciduous trees, 36m tall, found in the countryside, parks and gardens.They have bold divided leaves with white spires of flowers in the spring which later, in the autumn, turn into the fruit, horse chestnuts or conkers which have spiny outer casings.For quite some time now we have been reading that there is a problem in the UK with the Horse Chestnut leaf miner moth, Camerarie ohridella. It was first noticed in 1984 in Macedonia, a small country north of Greece, which has spread steadily across Europe , until it reached our shores. In 2002 it was discovered for the first time here in Wimbledon, and has taken another 9 yrs to reach us. The moth causes damage to the leaves but so far there is no evidence that it causes the death of the trees, however the fruits, conkers, are fewer and smaller.
You can imagine my horror one day when I went into our woodland and found that this year our 4 trees have been infected. The worst infestation is on the oldest Chestnut tree that we have at the end of the woodland, the tree must be at least 200 yrs old, going by the girth of the trunk. The moth lays its eggs on the leaf and the caterpillar burrows between the top and bottom layer of the leaf, causing ugly patches to form as it travels around inside the leaf. Apparantly trees survive the loss of these leaves and usually come into leaf normally the following year.
The larva damage the leaves and stunt growth. The leaves are covered in brown patches which spread across the entire tree, making it look as if autumn has come early, the leaves die and drop off. The woodland floor is covered with dead chestnut leaves at the moment, it looks more like November than the beginning of August.
New leaves grow and are again infected, this can repeat itself several times in a season, surely this must weaken the tree. Worryingly, the moth can have 3 generations in one year with the last generation pupating for 6 months over the winter. Our last winter , even though we had -15C for some time wasn’t cold enough to get rid of it, it is capable of surviving temperatures down to -23C.
We do have plenty of natural predators, blue tits, great tits and oak bush crickets eat the pupa in the leaves, but unfortunately this only accounts for a small percentage of the problem. This one is empty, has one of the predators found it or has a moth emerged!
The recommended procedure to eradicate the moth, is to collect and burn all the leaves before March, which is when the new moths will be emerging, this should then kill all the pupa in the leaves, which in turn should mean that there would be far fewer moths the following year. I have just been onto the R.H.S. website and as an alternative to burning, the leaves could be gathered up and put into sealed bags until at least next July. This would mean that the moths would emerge and die in the bags. We will have to have a word with our neighbours, 3 more houses have Chestnuts in their woodland and I can see, when I pass, that their trees are also infected.
We had all better get started collecting leaves, I can see that we are going to be very busy.
What a beautiful tree! It would be a tragedy to lose it. Raking all those leaves will be a lot of work, but worth it!
Just hope raking the leaves up will work Deb, bound to miss some though. I will look at it as good exercise for the waistline !!
Dear Pauline, good luck with the raking – sounds like a lot of work but hopefully you will beat those caterpillars. I didn’t realize you lived in Wimbledon. I lived in Wimbledon in the 1970s, on The Ridgeway. Had my daughter there, and used to walk with her in the pram to Canizarro Park and the Common. I miss it, such a beautiful area. cheers, catmint
Thanks for your sympathy catmint, just hope my waistline shows some improvement after all the raking ! The moth was first discovered in England in Wimbledon, in 2002, we live in Devon and it has taken 9 yrs to spread to here. It is more or less widespread in England and Wales now and is just over the border into Scotland. Fancy, you used to live in Wimbedon, it’s a small world !
Hi, I also have that problem with my horse chestnut. Luckily it is still rather small and lives in a big pot, so gathering up all the leaves and getting rid of them is not so difficult. In spite of me doing my best to get rid of all the leaves last year, some moths or their offspring have survived and my tree is beginning to look a bit bedraggled. But it is still going strong otherwise. Good luck with getting the neighbours involved.
How I wish my 4 were in pots Helen !!! Can’t see that we will ever get all the leaves swept up – but at least we can try. The neighbours are being very good and sweeping up their leaves, hopefully we can stop it getting any worse by doing this.