Diseased Eucalyptus trees line the 44-acre recreational lake in the Laguna Niguel Regional Park. Photo by Jain Lemos.
The Eucalyptus trees in Laguna Niguel Regional Park near my house in Orange County, Calif. are suffering! Dozens of these mature trees lining the banks of the park’s fishing lake have this condition. According to this site, these are LERPS. A quick search of Google Images resulted in this reference image below. Even though this is from a Eucalyptus tree in Bullhead City, Ariz., the pests looks similar to what I found on our trees here. Their “Control Strategy” is not very encouraging, but since the date of their post was 2001 and the lerps were new pests at the time, perhaps they have since found a solution.
Item Name: Eucalyptus Redgum Lerp Psylid
Date: 6/6/01
City/Area: Bullhead City, AZ
Description of Conditions: Feeding on Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Control Strategy: Relatively little is known about controlling this new pest.
Update: I received this email on March 6:
Michael Miniaci, Supervisor
Laguna Niguel Regional Park
Dear Mr. Miniaci,
We have recently received an E-mail from a local resident concerned about the condition of several eucalyptus trees within the Laguna Niguel Regional Park. I have been asked to forward this information to the Park Supervisor and would appreciate any response you can provide Ms. Lemos regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
Solveig Darner
Community Liaison
Here is an update from our Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Ming!
Hi Jain,
I’m just getting to this and it looks like it has already been forwarded to the County Parks department. That’s good because as you probably know, the regional park is under county (not city) control and they are the ones who hopefully have already been paying attention to the problem. I was running in the park last week and noticed the same thing. I’m looking forward to hearing their answer too. Thanks for the research and great photos. Take care.
Robert
Robert Ming
Mayor, City of Laguna Niguel
Apparently you are very influential in the county. :-)
Good job!