The Cicadas Are Coming: What Forest Landowners and Wildcrafters Need to Know in a Brood XIV Year

Cicada Brood XIV returns to the eastern United States this year, bringing natural risks and benefits to Appalachian woodlands. Photo by Michael Kropiewnicki.

If you’re a forest landowner, wildcrafter, forager, or someone who relies on the woods for your livelihood, you may have already heard the hum building beneath the soil and in the trees. This year, 2025 marks the return of Brood XIV, one of the largest and most wide-reaching emergences of 17-year periodical cicadas in the U.S.

These insects aren’t just a curious natural phenomenon. They can bring both challenges and opportunities to those who work with the land. Whether you steward forestland for timber, cultivate understory crops, or wildcraft medicinal plants, understanding how cicadas affect ecosystems can help you plan ahead and make the most of their brief but powerful visit.

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What Is Brood XIV?

Brood XIV is one of the 15 distinct groups of periodical cicadas tracked by scientists. This group of cicadas live underground for 17 years before emerging synchronously by the billions to molt, mate, and die all within about six weeks.

This particular brood is:

• Centered in Kentucky, with major emergence expected across most of the state

• Also active in parts of Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Georgia

• Last seen in 2008, making 2025 their next scheduled return

• Composed of three species of cicadas that emerge together in massive numbers

Active Periodical Cicada Broods in the United States. Map created by Andrew M. Liebhold, Michael J. Bohne, and Rebecca L. Lilja for the US Forest Service. Click the map for more details.

Unlike the green, annual cicadas you might hear every summer, these periodical cicadas have black bodies, orange-veined wings, and blood-red eyes. And while they might look eerie and sound overwhelming, they don’t bite, sting, or eat your crops, but they can impact your land in other ways.

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What Cicadas Do (and Don’t Do) to the Forest

Let’s clear up a few common myths first:

•  Cicadas don’t chew leaves or crops. Adults don’t eat in any meaningful way. They’re here to reproduce, not to feed.

• They aren’t locusts. While people often call them locusts (like the biblical swarm insects), cicadas aren’t related to grasshoppers, the family in which locusts belong. They don’t form destructive clouds or strip vegetation.

So what do they actually do?

Female Cicadas Lay Eggs in Twigs

This is where the main risk to forest landowners comes in. Females use a saw-like organ to slice open small twigs and insert their eggs. This can cause:

• “Flagging”—visible browning and dying-back of branch tips

• Broken or weakened limbs

• In extreme cases, loss of vigor in young trees

Young trees (under 3–4 years old) are especially vulnerable. This includes:

• Newly planted hardwood seedlings

• Orchard trees (apple, peach, nut, etc.)

• Landscape trees and nursery stock

• Reforested areas or conservation plantings

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How to Protect Young Trees

If you’ve recently planted saplings or plan to do so this year, consider:

• Delaying planting until after the emergence (usually late May to June)

• Covering trees with fine mesh netting (no larger than 1/4”) to prevent egg-laying

• Avoiding pruning during or just before emergence to limit attractive new growth

• Flagging affected branches and waiting until after cicadas are gone to prune deadwood

Steve Kruger, Director of Forest Livelihoods at LiKEN, emphasizes the importance of timing when it comes to planting during a cicada year:

“I would suggest people wanting to do an orchard should consider waiting to plant until Fall or the next year if there is going to be a large cicada emergence. Planting trees in the middle of summer is usually not advisable either because of potential heat and drought stress.”

This advice is especially important for those starting orchards or forest farming projects. Holding off on planting until fall (or even the following spring) not only avoids cicada egg-laying damage but also gives your trees a better chance of surviving their first hot summer.

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Surprising Benefits: Soil and Wildlife Booms

While cicadas can be a nuisance, they’re also an incredible resource for the forest ecosystem.

Soil Enrichment

After mating, adult cicadas die in huge numbers and fall to the forest floor, where they decompose and return valuable nutrients, especially nitrogen, to the soil. This is particularly beneficial for:

• Wild-simulated crops like ginseng, goldenseal, and black cohosh

• Mushrooms grown in forest duff

• Native understory plants and soil-building cover crops

Think of cicadas as a natural pulse of organic matter, like a compost layer spread across the woods.

Wildlife Feast

Cicadas provide a massive pulse of protein to the forest food web. Birds, reptiles, small mammals, and even fish feast on the emergence, often producing more young thanks to the abundance. This makes cicada years a boon for wildlife watchers, photographers, and ecotourism guides, a rare chance to observe animals behaving differently in response to the sudden surplus. And it’s not just animals that take notice: some people get in on the action too. Across the U.S. and in many cultures around the world, cicadas are considered a sustainable, high-protein snack—you’ll even find folks batter-frying them and serving them like tempura or tossing them into tacos. For the curious, they’re described as nutty or shrimp-like in flavor (just be sure to harvest them right after molting for the softest texture). Whether you’re observing or participating, a cicada emergence is a living reminder of how abundance echoes through an ecosystem.

Cicada Shells in Traditional Medicine

Steve Kruger also shared a fascinating tidbit about medicinal uses for cicada shells:

“Another fun fact is that cicada shells can be used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. I don’t think it’s terribly common, but working with ginseng buyers, I met someone purchasing them several years ago during a brood outbreak.”

The shed skins, called exuviae, are known in Traditional Chinese Medicine as Chan Tui and have long symbolized rebirth, transformation, and renewal—echoing their dramatic life cycle of emerging after 17 years underground.

It’s a reminder that every part of the forest has value—sometimes in ways we don’t expect. If you’re already harvesting ginseng or working with buyers, it may be worth asking if there’s any interest in cicada shells.

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How to Adapt Your Land-Based Plans

Emergence years are predictable and brief. Here’s how to make them work for you:

Adjust Your Calendar

• Plan tree plantings after June

• Focus this season on soil-building, harvesting, and forest maintenance

• Avoid unnecessary pruning or tree stress during active emergence

Educate and Share

• Cicada years are great teaching opportunities. Consider hosting a community walk, youth workshop, or storytelling session

• Share what you know about cicadas and forest resilience with neighbors and family. (You can start by sending them this blog!)

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Final Thoughts: A Natural Spectacle, Not a Disaster

Cicadas aren’t a plague; they’re a cyclical part of Eastern forest life, and they’ve been coming for millions of years. For forest stewards, they’re a reminder of the deep rhythms of the land and the importance of adapting to nature’s cycles.

By planning ahead, protecting vulnerable plantings, and leaning into the benefits they bring, you can weather a cicada emergence and even come out stronger.

If you’d like support or resources to prepare your land for Brood XIV, LiKEN is here to help. We connect forest landowners and community stewards with training, information, and peer networks to build long-term resilience and opportunity from the land.

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Questions or stories about cicadas on your land? Get in touch. We’d love to hear from you. Email our Forest Livelihoods director Steve Kruger at skruger@likenknowledge.org for more information.