In my neighborhood there are a few houses with smallish (6 to 10 feet) trees wrapped in what appears to be gauze. Why? It’s mostly transparent, so it doesn’t seem like it could protect them from the sun. Is it for some pest?
My gut tells me I’d have to quote too much for Fair Use in order to answer, but … these people seem to cover all the usual reasons:
Which doesn’t tell us what your people were trying to do, or even if they’re using a product that will achieve their goals.
It could be to prevent sunscald.
The wrap protects the young tree trunk from physical damage (trimmer line, sun scorch, deer nibbling) but stretches as the tree grows, then degrades. Maybe it protects against boring insects as well.
JFC. If I have to hear that ash borer’s “Guy walks into a bar” joke One More Time … !
I’m not sure where you live but there has been news coverage that Brood X of the periodic cicadas will be emerging soon. They purportedly kill smaller trees, particularly those with branches thinner than a pencil, Might you be in one of the affected places?
In DC, I’m seeing smaller trees covered in gauze tents to protect against cicadas. I think you’re in the same area?
Cicadas would probably explain it. Thanks!
Dunno why it would be cicadas. They feed on roots. Once they pop above ground to reproduce they don’t eat at all. I’ve heard of their combined weight pulling down branches but otherwise they are harmless to the tree once they are above ground.
The females cut grooves in the branches and lay eggs inside. Mature trees often have scars.
But they will be all over the whole tree. What use is there in wrapping the bottom of the trunk to protect from cicadas?
Also, it would be weird if cicadas seriously harmed their tree. Each successive generation depends on the tree for their own survival. Doing something that would kill the tree (or make it more susceptible to dying) would be an evolutionary bad move for them (I would think).
The entirety of the trees I’ve been seeing are wrapped, not just the trunks.
Might as well just tent the whole tree and fumigate it.
Ahhhhh, I’ve never seen that. I thought you were describing trunks that were wrapped.
Then it’s certainly to protect it from bugs. Really bad for local bird life though, people do ridiculously earth damaging things to hold back bugs.
Here in DC, I’ve only seen it on small trees that look like they were planted recently and only in the last couple of weeks because of brood x.
That matches the trees I’ve seen – planted recently, not very big.
Meanwhile all us fly fishers are stockpiling cicada flies and waiting…
Not knowing where the OP lives and at the risk of saying something really stupid, but perhaps of interest to some …
When I lived in the Midwest, every few years we’d have a population explosion of a certain type of spider. They were very small, but their webs looked like a gauzy curtain that would partly or completely envelop a hefty fraction of all the trees and many shrubs in the local area. This article is about a similar-looking event in Pakistan but I’ve seen it in Missouri and Texas.
Ref this university cite, certain worms in Oklahoma can produce a similar effect.
Nature: it be weird an’ shit.
I’ve seen in western Canada where they are still fighting a rear-guard action against Dutch Elm Disease that they will wrap the trunk of old elm trees in a strip (only a strip) of fiberglass and foil. Apparently this discourages the bugs that carry the fungus up to the top of the trees in the spring.
I know the *^&%&%$$# rabbits chew off the shoots and bark of smallish trees so protecting the first foot or two is a good idea until they get big enough.