Gypsy Moth Problem Beginning To Resolve Itself

Try not to interfere and nature will find a way.  Gypsy moths are succumbing to their own natural pathogens, which have followed them from overseas.  A deadly fungus, which is spread via spores on the wind and a virus spread by physical contact, are helping to put this invasive species in check.  Additionally, parasitic flies, which target the caterpillars, are helping to spread the pathogens even faster.

How does this connect to your garden or food forest?  Allow biological pestilence to resolve itself whenever possible.  Don't freak out at the first sign of aphids or hoppers and start spraying and dusting everything.  Doing so often does more harm than good.  You will end up killing many of your natural controls.  If a particular pathogen or pest is affecting your plants, are you doing enough to diversify your stock or provide competition from other fungi or bacteria?

If you have healthy habitat and biodiversity, then predators and other population controls will balance things out.  You should never expect to rid yourself of every last grasshopper or flea beetle, but you can render them relatively harmless by having a diversity of plants, animals, insects, fungi, and bacteria to begin with.  For every pathogen, there exists a biological control.  In some cases, the control will be extinction of the host.  But with diversity, this will not matter that much in the long run.  

Why spend all your time fighting the inevitable?  Allow nature to do the work for you.  If a pest exists in an environment long enough, it will eventually be mitigated.  Whether it be by disease, birds, insects, or a multitude of other reasons, the result is eventually the same.  With aphids this can happen in the course of a couple weeks.  In some cases it may take a couple of years, but it will happen.  Since gypsy moths are invasive and from another continent it took a little longer.  However, even they are succumbing to the inevitable.

http://phys.org/news195325791.html
http://phys.org/news/2011-09-viral-gene-sick-gypsy-moth.html

Picture Citation:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aleiodes_indiscretus_wasp_parasitizing_gypsy_moth_caterpillar.jpg