Texas Mt Laurels

[Morgan goldberg]

My 12 year old Texas Mt. Laurel started being attacked by lopedia major about 3 years ago. Now this year it barely had any blooms because the bugs suck them all dry before they had a chance to open. Now the bugs are working on the terminal tips for New Growth and the leaves so that the plant is starting to look very disfigured. The tree is about 15 ft tall so it's difficult to spray the whole thing although I haven't tried. My question is what can I use to get rid of these bugs and where do they lay their eggs?TIA

 

[Chuck]

My 12 year old Texas Mt. Laurel started being attacked by lopedia major about 3 years ago. Now this year it barely had any blooms because the bugs suck them all dry before they had a chance to open. Now the bugs are working on the terminal tips for New Growth and the leaves so that the plant is starting to look very disfigured. The tree is about 15 ft tall so it's difficult to spray the whole thing although I haven't tried. My question is what can I use to get rid of these bugs and where do they lay their eggs?TIA

Get a hose-end sprayer and spray with a spinosad based insecticide. Three years ago I too had problems with lopedia major. Are you saying that they are back in numbers or is this a different bug? Whatever the case may be spinosad will take care of them. This year every one of my blooms were killed and I never saw a single bug of any kind. All I can figure is that I had a very mild winter and the tree budded out early and then I had a heavy frost. The red and black bug you see sometimes appear in large numbers but they do not affect the tree in any way except cosmetically. They usually lay their eggs in the interior of the tree on the leaf surface. I have seen them both on the top and bottom of the leaves. The eggs hatch and the caterpillar shows up usually toward the beginning of summer and eats on the new growth. Spinosad also works on them but Bt works a LOT better. So if you have bugs use spinosad and if you have caterpillars use Bt. If you have normal water pressure a hose-end sprayer will easily do what you want. Set it on 2 oz per gallon of water.

 

[Chuck]

I just went out and looked at my mountain laurels and I found a few juvenile lopedias all about 1/4 inch long. I will spray them tomorrow.

 

[Marck]

Texas Mountain Laurel is not related to other 'laurels' or 'mountain laurels'. Instead it is a large shrub or small tree in the Pea Family (Fabaceae), native to Mexico, Texas, and eastern New Mexico. Also known as Mescal Bean, the Texas Mountain Laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum, formerly Calia secundiflora or Sophora secundiflora) is an attractive evergreen, blooming in Spring with purple flowers.
The plant contains cytisine and is quite poisonous. There are about five other species of Dermatophyllum native to Arizona, New mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

Lopidea major is the Texas Mountain Laurel Bug (Family Miridaceae, Order Heliptera), a specialized Mirid bug that feeds only on species of Dermatophyllum, mostly in the Spring.