Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fuzzy growth on oak leaves...

Have a few post oaks in the front yard that have already dropped all their leaves.

The leaves are covered with something that I'm not familar with.

I've seen these before, but not in big numbers. Almost every leaf is covered this year.

Looks like a truck load of cellulose insulation blew into the yard.

When you pick them apart, they look fibrous like mini cattails..

Any ideas..?

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE !!!!!


Mike

I grew up under 10 huge oak trees, and there were another half a dozen along the back fence line. I've never seen anything like your photos show.

Woolly Oak Leaf Gall � These attach to the mid vein (usually) or side veins (sometimes). They grow on the underside of the leaf, and they are easier to see as the leaves fall. Based on this one sample, it looks like they may have a "vampire-like" effect on some surrounding tissue.

galls2_4
Wooly oak leaf galls look a bit like cotton balls.
Grape Phylloxera Gall � In 1850, there was only one species of grape being grown in all the vineyards of Europe. In about 1860, the Grape Phylloxera (a wingless aphid about 1/20" long) was accidentally introduced from its native North America. The rest, as they say, is history. By 1880, the little critter had traveled to Australia, Algeria, South Africa, and via a different route, California. One-third of French wine-producing grapes, about 2 � million acres, were wiped out (Mother Nature usually finds a way to deal with monocultures).

While leaf galls seldom damage a plant, a plant with grape phylloxera leaf galls has root galls, too, and the root galls weaken and stunt the vine. The French fought back, and after burying live toads under the vines to draw out the poison failed to work (True!), they imported the rootstocks of resistant American Fox grapes both to graft the French vines onto and to develop hybrids from - all the while "dissing" the quality of the American grapes. Each of the leaf galls may house a teeny, yellow Aphid Mom and hundreds of eggs and/or nymphs.






http://naturesnippets.com/2012/10/26/woolly-oak-leaf-galls/

well,..you piqued my interest.

Removing the fluff with an X-acto knife, showed what appears to be a small cluster of tan colored insect eggs, probably 1/32-1/16 in dia.



I cut one of the eggs open, and inside there's a dead larva or nymph. Can't see it clearly, my eyes aren't that good up close..

Guess it's larva that didn't make it this Summer...

A couple years ago, I found an object under my oak trees. It looked like a miniature apple. It ended up being Oak apple gall, which is formed by a wasp, laying its eggs. Your fuzzy spots on the leaves must be close to the same thing! I dont think there is much you can do about it.