SULLIVAN, Ill. (WAND) - Last year, tens of thousands of cicadas emerged in Central Illinois and laid their eggs before returning to the ground. While they were above ground, they landed on local trees and plants, bringing wrecking havoc on vegetation. 

Last fall, Okaw Valley Orchard struggled to produce enough apples to stay open. This year, they are still seeing the impacts of the insect infestation. 

"Where the cicadas damaged the trees last year, they are still a little bit weakened and healing over," said Mike Mitchell, owner of Okaw Valley Orchard. "So there's a little bit of a concern that they aren't strong enough to hold apples, but for the most part I think they will be okay."

Mitchell said the trees are marked with small ridges and knobs from where cicadas laid their eggs last year. He's had to focus on pruning back sections of the branches that were damaged and falling off from last year. 

Nick Seiter, an Assistant Professor of Field Crop Emetology at the University of Illinois said cicadas often cause problems for small trees, but don't impact larger vegetation usually. 

"The main impact on the plants from that cicada activity is the loss of those little tiny branches," said Seiter. "Generally speaking, if you're a small tree, if you're a young tree, that could be a fairly high proportion of your branches which can be a big problem. It can be a big problem for transplants and it can be a big problem for new or seedling trees."

But, yields are looking better this year, thanks to some of the natural pruning that happens when small branches die off.  

"The cicadas damaged them last year so they go into stress mode and actually produce more fruiting spurs," said Mitchell. "So this year, there's more apples than normal, because of the damage I had last year."

Last year, Okaw Valley Orchard had to cut their u-pick apple season short because of a shortage of apples. This year, Mitchell plans to have u-pick apples available from late August to late October. 

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