Gall wasps

[tracy]

Interesting little snipped on Galls here:

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/multimedia/story.aspx?id=495

We have them all over one particular oak tree! Amazing!

[MartreCycle]

Hi Tracy - brilliant timing - wandering around the oaks last weekend doing some pruning - I saw 'loads' - knew it was an insect - but not which one - thank you.

The wood must have lot of the gall wasps - I see there are many different types of galls - mine were like a small football - almost perfectly round

[tracy]

They are very cool aren't they?

We seem to have wonky ones, you can see pics of ours in this blog post

http://peplers.blogspot.com/2008/08/bank-holiday-weekend-monday.html

and this one has the round ones

http://peplers.blogspot.com/2008/11/odds-and-ends.html

[carlight]

supposedly these were encouraged/introduced in connection with the tanning industries-and subsequently harvested . that might just be a woodland myth !

on a separate note - am intrigued by the suggestion ,above, of pruning (presumably juvenile)oaks at this time of year . am wondering if this is a technique to lessen epicormic regeneration , or whether it falls under the gardeners' motto of ; "when's the best time to prune suchnsuch shrub ? - when you're stood next to it with a pair of secateurs "