Heather Beetle Season

Beetles at Langholm, August 2015

The heather beetle season is now well underway, and reports are coming into the Trust about beetle outbreaks across the British uplands. Worryingly, some of the excellent work carried out as part of the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project to restore beetle damage caused in 2009 and 2010 has been struck by beetles again, and large areas of Middlemoss where the road crosses from Langholm to Newcastleton have turned red. 

Beetle larvae were present in large numbers when the Trust visited a fortnight ago to visit the study areas at the South end of the moor, and the most likely theory is that the damage has simply been postponed by the late spring, rather than inhibited by it as was hoped.

Elsewhere, large outbreaks have occurred in the North Pennines near Croglin and further East towards Durham, and there are signs of more damage in the North York Moors, with worrying evidence that heather is possibly being damaged by an outbreak of phytophthora. If this is the case, it will be one of the first confirmed large-scale outbreaks of phythophthora in heather, and we are hoping to confirm or allay fears about this as soon as possible. 

The Trust is gathering as much information as possible about beetle damage this summer, so please don't hesitate to let us know if you see signs of heather that is red and does not flower - we can usually confirm the presence of beetle damage by examining photographs, but we are always available to carry out advisory site visits to offer bespoke consultancy on heather beetle issues. Contact us for more details, and if you do find beetle damage, please take the time to fill in a survey form from the Trust's website.