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The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is planning to release two new predatory beetles to stop the spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that has devastated hemlock forests throughout the eastern United States.
From Southeast Farm Press
Target spot has created much concern among cotton growers in the Southeast over the past few years and began showing up in cotton fields in the Carolinas and Virginia for the first time last year.
Little is known about the impact of the fungal disease on yield and quality, but recent research indicates there may be significant differences among varieties.
From the Roanoke Times
On Friday a Virginia Tech research team working to stop destruction of Appalachia’s iconic hemlock trees unleashed a new microscopic weapon in the fight against the tree-killing woolly adelgid.
Tech entomology professor Scott Salom and graduate student Katlin Mooneyham seeded infested hemlocks on private property near Mountain Lake in Giles County with about 1,000 laboratory-grown eggs of the Laricobius osakensis, a newly discovered beetle species from Osaka, Japan, that preys almost exclusively on the woolly adelgid.
By Roy Roberson, Southeast Farm Press
The extent of damage caused by brown marmorated stink bugs and kudzu bugs in Virginia is not known for certain, but having both Asian imports meet in several counties in Virginia is cause enough for entomologists and growers in both North Carolina and Virginia to take notice.
By Ames Herbert, Virginia Extension Entomologist
With a full complement of field scouts in place, more soybean fields are being found with brown marmorated stink bug infestations.
We are up to 20 counties in Virginia spread over a very large area of the state.
When Sharon Bryant read an e-mail asking citizens to help find healthy infested hemlocks, she wanted to help. Bryant, a middle school science and math teacher in Lenoir County, had a number of hemlocks in her backyard, all of which were covered with the cottony hemlock woolly adelgid, but a few that were still green and thriving. With a call to researchers at North Carolina State University, Bryant became one of the first citizen scientists to participate in the new “Tiny Terrors” project, designed to collect cuttings from hemlock and Fraser fir trees in an attempt to breed adelgid-resistant trees.
For research updates, disease advisory alerts, and general tips and pictures of diseases throughout 2012, go to Virginia’s new Facebook page, www.facebook.com/vtesarecpp.
Boxwood blight (also called “box blight” in Europe), caused by the fungal pathogen Cylindrocladium buxicola, was reported for the first time in the U.S. at two North Carolina production nurseries in October, 2011. Boxwoods originating from an infected block of plants at one of the North Carolina nurseries were planted in two production fields in Virginia. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are developing and implementing mitigation strategies aimed at aggressively removing the pathogen from infested fields and stopping the spread of this disease.
The Virginia IPM Program is printing an updated edition of the Mid-Atlantic Guide to the Insect Pests and Beneficials of Corn, Soybean, and Small Grain. The new version includes some of the newest invasive pests, including the bean plataspid.
The booklet–small enough to fit in a shirt or back pocket–includes 40 full-color pages of photos and descriptions of pests, beneficial insects and identification keys for insects typically found in corn, soybean and small grain fields.
For copies, contact Ames Herbert at herbert@vt.edu. Up to 4 copies can be provided at no charge. For additional copies, please provide a FedEx number and a shipping address.
Brown marmorated stink bugs continue their gradual march to the south and seem to be enjoying the grain fields of northern Virginia.
Entomologists contend the southward movement is almost certain to continue.
