Treatments & Disease Control
Spraying, trunk injection and soil treatment for winter moth, southern pine beetle, oak decline and the other pressures that are killing island trees.
We diagnose and treat the pests and diseases actually killing trees on Martha's Vineyard — winter moth, southern pine beetle, oak decline, root and canker fungi — using trunk injection, soil application or targeted spraying. Diagnosis comes first: no treatment is sold without a cause.
Most of the trees we are asked to remove on the Vineyard did not die suddenly. They declined for three or four years while something treatable was working on them, and nobody looked until the crown was half gone.
Winter moth is the clearest example. The caterpillars defoliate oaks and maples in May, the tree pushes a second flush of leaves at its own expense, and after three or four consecutive years of that it has no reserves left. Drought or a gypsy moth year finishes it. Treated on the right calendar — dormant oil in late March, or a targeted foliar application at bud break — the same tree stays healthy.
We treat by injection where it makes sense and by spray where it does not. Trunk injection puts the material inside the tree with no drift, which matters when you are near a well, a pond, a vegetable garden or a neighbour who did not ask for any of this. Soil applications go in at the root zone. Foliar spraying is the last option, not the first, and it is timed to the pest rather than to a service calendar.
We are not going to sell you a subscription plan. If a tree does not have a treatable problem, the honest answer is that it needs water and mulch and no more compaction under the crown.
What we are looking for
- Oaks and maples defoliated in May, then leafing out a second time — winter moth, three years running is fatal
- Pitch pine with popcorn-sized pitch tubes on the trunk and fading needles — southern pine beetle
- Black oak thinning from the top down over two or three seasons
- Mushrooms or brackets at the base of the trunk, which is a root or butt rot and changes the whole conversation
- Leyland cypress browning out in patches from the inside
- Any tree that has looked slightly worse each year for three years
The job, step by step
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Diagnosis first
We identify what is actually wrong before quoting a treatment. Sometimes the answer is drought and compaction, and no product fixes that.
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The right method
Trunk injection where drift matters — near wells, ponds, gardens. Soil application at the root zone. Foliar spray only when timing demands it.
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On the pest's calendar
Winter moth is a late-March dormant oil or a bud-break application. Treating in July is money burnt.
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Follow-up
We come back and look. A treatment nobody checks is a guess.
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What we will not do
Blanket cover sprays on a schedule, or treating a tree whose root plate has already failed.
$250–$1,600 for most jobs
Nobody on the island publishes numbers, which helps nobody. This is the honest range — the estimate is exact, and it is free.
What moves it up or down
- Trunk diameter — injection is priced by DBH
- How many trees; a stand of oaks is cheaper per tree than one
- Method: injection costs more per visit than spray and lasts longer
- Whether the site needs extra care for a well, a pond or a shellfish area
- Whether it is one treatment or a two-season programme
Questions we get asked
Timing is the whole treatment. A dormant horticultural oil application in late March targets the eggs; a foliar application at bud break targets the caterpillars before they do the damage. By the time you can see the defoliation in May, that season is already lost — the useful question then is whether the tree has been hit three years running, which is the point at which it starts dying.
Often needed alongside
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