Experts in Kentucky report that eastern tent caterpillar numbers are up for the third consecutive year, although populations vary from location to location.

According to Lee Townsend, University of Kentucky College of Agriculture entomologist, now is the time to check wild cherry and related trees for eastern tent caterpillar activity to determine whether management is necessary.

"The tents are easy to see now," he said. "Many of the small nests out on limbs have been abandoned because caterpillars have moved to larger tents at branch angles on the main trunks."

Entomologists anticipate full-grown larvae by the third week of April. From then through early May, caterpillars will leave the trees where they have been developing and disperse to protected sites to spin a cocoon and pupate. Once the caterpillars have reached these dispersing stages, controlling them becomes much more difficult, Townsend said