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Lewis SLF Control Methods 2017-2018 Summary

Introduction
Spotted lanternfly, SLF, Lycorma delicatula, a sap feeding insect native to Taiwan and China, was first detected in the U.S. in 2014. Field populations continue to expand beyond the 14 county area currently under quarantine in southeastern Pennsylvania. Severe impacts by this insect have been noted.
The current control measure being employed by state and federal cooperators against SLF is a bark spray application of dinotefuran on tree of heaven (Ailanthus), the preferred host tree. The effectiveness of this control approach is readily apparent, especially later in the year when dead SLF adults can be found piled at the base of treated trees (Fig 1). Read Full Report Here

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March 2019 Announcement

Things are constantly changing here at Mauget and we wanted to take a minute to update you on some additional employee changes.

 

Effective February 1, 2019 we officially moved Jim Rollins from Regional Sales Manager into a consulting position working with Research and Development.  Jim is using his knowledge and expertise to work with Robin Spitko, Mauget’s Science Officer, in Research and Development.  You will see him at tree care related seminars, symposiums and other events that are providing the latest information related to pests and diseases affecting our industry.  His knowledge and experience will continue to have an impact on how Mauget moves forward to address treatments for these issues.  He will also be present at trade shows and other events as well as training and presentations to support Mauget’s commitment to micro-injection technology and treatments.

 

Jean Scott has rejoined the Mauget team as a consultant also working with Jim and Robin in Research and Development.  You will likely see her at some shows and events answering questions and offering guidance.

 

We are also saying good-bye to Ann Hope at the end of March 2019.  Ann has decided to make a change and care for trees more directly.  She has been a great asset to Mauget over the last 14+ years with her knowledge of arboriculture, PHC tree care, Tree Injection and more.  Ann also was our go-to for all technical support and taught the applicator training classes in the west as well.  Ann’s presence will certainly be missed here at the office.  Please join us in wishing her great success in this next chapter of her life.

 

As we strive to provide you, our distributors, all the support you need to successfully sell Mauget products we will be expanding our internal team.  Lisa McCoy will assist you with all your sales needs.  She is also working to provide you with the marketing support you need to reach your goals whether that is scheduling training, getting advertising pieces or directing you to the right resource.

We will also be looking to expand our team over the next few months and will keep you posted with the changes as they occur.

 

As always, thank you for your on-going support.  We look forward to growing with you.

 

Sincerely,

Kellie E. Dodds

President/CEO

Dr. Robin Spitko

Mauget Expands Arbor Science Research and Development With Hiring of Industry Veteran Dr. Robin Spitko

November 30, 2017

 

Robin brings more than 35 years of plant pathology expertise to the first family of tree-injector technology

Arcadia, Ca – JJ Mauget Company, pioneers in the technology of tree injector systems, has announced the appointment of Dr. Robin Spitko as Chief Science Officer. Robin brings more than thirty-five years of experience working as a domestic and international research investigator for the agricultural chemical industry and universities. Robin’s extensive background includes project management and protocol design for traditional and organic agrichemicals. Dr. Spitko was chairwoman of the Government Affairs Committee, where she was responsible for coordinating legislative affairs for the National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants (NAICC) from 1996 through 2003. Robin has also been a proven expert witness in numerous trials involving agricultural litigation. She’s provided irrefutable testimony in several cases that were resolved favorably due to her expertise.

Every regulatory decision that’s made is transitioning agriculture. It’s happening with each new decision made.

Dr. Roberta Spitko 2002

Dr. Spitko reports directly to JJ Mauget’s President & CEO, Kellie Dodds. Robin will lead Mauget’s science team in research and development, expanding Mauget’s outreach regarding government and academic testing and contracts, upping Mauget’s presence with the scientific community. Robin will lend a hand in leveraging analytics enhancing the JJ Mauget company’s brand for a greater customer and industry awareness. In the era of Climate Change and possible domestic tree extinction, the need for a higher level of sophistication is required by our scientists for optimal implementation of Mauget’s products to continually be a leader in the technology of micro-injections systems.

“To say we are excited about having Robin joining the Mauget team would be a huge understatement. I met Robin 30 years ago at an industry conference. We clicked right away. Robin will immediately springboard Mauget to another level corporately and scientifically. Mauget has been in the tree injector business for almost 60 years serving the public. With Dr. Spitko’s input, we should have a greater outreach, enabling Mauget to continue to be the leader in tree-injector technology.”

After being the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in plant pathology at the University of Massachusetts in 1981, Robin and her partner, Glenn Morin, an entomologist, founded New England Fruit Consultants (NEFCON). NEFCON, an independent agricultural-consulting firm based in western Massachusetts offers a full suite of services to the commercial tree fruit industry in the Northeast. One of her responsibilities with NEFCON was to direct regional Integrated Pest Management recommendations to commercial tree fruit producers in her area. Dr. Spitko brings a comprehensive and diverse skill set from her decades of involvement within the agricultural arts.

LANTERN FLY … NATIONAL PEST ALERT

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula )is an invasive sap-feeding planthopper, first discovered in the United States in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 2014.
Field observations indicate that the tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, is an important host plant; however the spotted lanternfly is known to feed on a wide range of hosts including wild and cultivated grapes, stone fruits, willow, and various hardwoods. This species is thought to be native to China, and has spread to other Asian countries. In 2004, it was first detected in Korea, where its populations expanded and it became an economically important pest of grapevines and fruit trees. In Korea, it damaged plants directly by phloem feeding, but also caused indirect damage due to mold that grew on honeydew excretions deposited on the leaves and fruits of host plants. It was recorded utilizing 67 host plant species in Korea, many of which also occur in the U.S. Given the wide range of hosts it feeds upon, the spotted lanternfly poses a serious economic threat to multiple U.S. industries, including viticulture, fruit trees, ornamental’s and timber.
Given that egg cases are deposited on such a wide variety of surfaces, this is the life stage that may have the greatest potential for spread via accidental transport to new areas. As of December 2016, the spotted lanternfly has been detected only in the southeastern region of Pennsylvania, specifically in areas surrounding Berks County.
Nymphs are flightless and may pose less of a threat for spread. However, they have been observed feeding upon over 30 species of host plants in Pennsylvania, demonstrating the spotted lanternfly is mobile and capable of dispersing to some degree as immature’s. The primary host, tree of heaven, is itself an introduced invasive species that occurs throughout much of the U.S. It is considered an edge species and grows quickly in disturbed sites, including along roadways and powerline corridors. As such, corridors of tree of heaven may provide opportunities for spotted lanternfly to spread.
Although adults are capable of flight, they are relatively weak flyers, relying instead on strong jumping to evade danger.
Mated females pose a high risk for establishing new populations by accidental transportation on vehicles, such as open bed trucks, and introduce their offspring to new areas. Infested municipalities are under a quarantine that covers all living life stages of the pest and its conveyances.
Trees of heaven fed upon by congregations of adults may exhibit weeping of sap along the trunk as well as build ups of honeydew excrement. Black sooty mold fungus grows on the honeydew on the tree as well as on surrounding soil and under-story plants. Weeping sap and/or honeydew build ups attract ants, bees, wasps, hornets, and flies.

USDA, APHIS has conducted several pesticide trials with many pesticide materials and should make their findings know in January 2018.

READ THE U.S.D.A. PEST ALERT BULLETIN

A Threat to California,Huanglongbing Disease

Huanglongbing or citrus greening disease is a plant disease that kills citrus trees has been found in California. The disease, called Huanglongbing or citrus greening disease, isn’t harmful to humans, but it is fatal for citrus trees and has no cure. The disease is spread by a pest called the Asian citrus psyllid as it feeds on citrus tree leaves. Until researchers find a solution, California homeowners who enjoy growing fresh citrus fruit in their yards, and California farmers tending to $2.5 billion worth of citrus fruit trees must work together to protect their trees. Learn more about how to detect the pest and disease and protect California’s beloved citrus heritage.
On July 25, 2017, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) confirmed a residential citrus tree in Riverside tested positive for Huanglongbing or (HLB), a deadly and incurable citrus plant disease. HLB is transmitted by the invasive insect Asian citrus psyllid, which is known to be in Riverside County. Local and state authorities acted quickly to remove the infected tree to prevent spread of the disease.
Representatives from the Riverside County Ag Commissioner Office, CDFA, California Citrus Mutual, UC Riverside, and City of Riverside will be providing updates, information, and resources at a community information session on Thursday, August 17, 2017 at the Arlington Library from 6 – 8 p.m.
Agenda:
-HLB update and pending quarantine in the City of Riverside
-Asian citrus psyllid quarantine and treatment protocols
-Best practices to prevent the movement of Asian citrus psyllid
-Tree removal and financial assistance resources available to qualified property owners
-HLB research updates
-Abandoned grove protocols
If you suspect your tree has the psyllid or disease, act fast! Call the California Department of Food and Agriculture at 800-491-1899. Learn more at www.CaliforniaCitrusThreat.org
Unable to attend? Watch the live stream here on Facebook or at www.YouTube.com/cityofriverside

Pesticides Ban Overturned

A Circuit Court judge overturned Montgomery MD county’s ban on the use of pesticides dealing a major setback to advocates who argued that chemicals in the products are unsafe.
The NALP, in a press release, stated that the opinion soundly reinforces the premise that pesticides are highly regulated at the federal and state levels and that public health and safety is not served by adding a third layer of regulation.The decision sets an important precedent regarding pesticide use and regulation in the state and nationally.
Judge Terrence McGann said that the law—the first of its kind for a major locality in the region — would conflict with federal and Maryland state regulations that allow the use of the pesticides. The case was just one example of Maryland counties’ “insatiable appetite to tamper with existing state laws,” McGann said. Counties have also “tried to hijack a portion of the existing field of law” in areas including tobacco, guns and minimum wage, he said.

Read the story

NEW PINE BARK BEETLE FOUND

A newly-discovered species of tree-killing bark beetle, Dendroctonus mesoamericanus Armendáriz-Toledano and Sullivan, has been described in a paper published online in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America by a group of researchers that includes a U.S. Forest Service scientist.
Numerous and diverse studies by a research team that includes members from the U.S., Mexico, and Norway determined the organism to be a species new to science and provided information needed to manage the insect, which may share responsibility with the southern pine beetle for catastrophic damage to pines of Central America in recent years.

Authors of the description paper include Dr. Brian Sullivan, research entomologist with the Forest Service Southern Research Station, Francisco Armendariz-Toledano, graduate student with the Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN) in Mexico City; Dr. Gerardo Zuniga of IPN, Dr. Lawrence Kirkendall of the University of Bergen, Norway, and Alicia Nino, graduate student at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Chiapas, Mexico.

Bark beetles of the genus Dendroctonus rank high among the most destructive conifer pests and include the southern pine beetle, which attacks pines from New Jersey to Texas and south to Nicaragua, as well as the recently causing extensive tree mortality in the Western U.S. and Canada. In recent decades, massive beetle attacks in Central America attributed to southern pine beetle have led to declines in and multimillion dollar losses in timber, recreation, and other ecosystem services.

Sullivan and fellow researchers found that not all of these losses could be attributed to southern pine beetle.

Kirkendall first proposed this beetle as a new species in 2002 but was only able to provide limited evidence. The studies Sullivan did between 2006 and 2010 on the pheromone and body wax chemistry of the beetle provided clear biological evidence that it was a species new to science. These findings stimulated subsequent interest and research at IPN and ECOSUR. Extension and forest health education programs in the Central American region have already begun to include information on the mesoamerican pine beetle.

“We found in research with our cooperators in Mexico and Norway that insects previously identified as southern are actually two different species—southern pine beetle and the newly identified mesoamerican pine beetle,” said Sullivan. “The new species is nearly indistinguishable from the southern pine beetle. The two species appear to work in cooperation to kill trees, and outbreaks by both may be more persistent and destructive than those by southern pine beetle alone.”

Southern and mesoamerican pine beetles do differ in several respects. The mesoamerican adults tend to be somewhat larger than the southern pine beetle, and the holes where they enter the tree’s bark exude more resin, producing bigger “pitch tubes.” Field observations suggest that the attacks trees shortly after southern pine beetle, colonizing the lower trunk and branches. The mesoamerican pine beetle also has a distinct pheromone chemistry and does not respond to traps baited with southern pine beetle lures.

Researchers have found mesoamerican pine beetles attacking eight species of native Central American pines and have collected the insect from Belize, southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

“A thorough understanding of this complex – the southern and mesoamerican pine beetle acting in concert—may prove critical for developing integrated pest management strategies for the Central American region,” said Sullivan. “This discovery also brings to light a potential exotic threat to the U.S. that was not previously known to exist.”

Provided by: USDA Forest Service
Explore further: Integrated pest management recommendations for the southern pine beetle
More information: Access the full text of the journal article: www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/47987
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-04-mesoamerican-beetle.html#jCp

A New Resource for the Asian Longhorned Beetle

The Asian longhorned beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis, is a wood-boring insect that is capable of destroying 30% of the urban trees in the United States at an economic loss of $669 billion. Infestations of this invasive beetle have been found in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they have been shown to feed on more than 100 different tree species, with a preference for maples, poplars, aspens, cottonwoods, and willows.

Now a new, open-access article in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management (JIPM) provides a comprehensive overview of the ALB, including a review of its biology, life stages, distribution, ecology, and methods of detecting and controlling it.

“There have been several reviews of ALB that were more for scientists, but this one is more for managers—people who are dealing with them,” said co-author Melody Keena, a research entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “This is a good summary of the scientific backing for everything the cooperative eradication programs are doing. They can point the public to this document for more information, especially because it’s written for JIPM in language that non-scientists can understand.”

The supplementary tables in the JIPM article will be particularly helpful for managers, according to the authors. The first lists nearly 160 different trees on which the ALB can feed, oviposit, or complete development under field conditions. Another lists tree species that are not considered to be ALB hosts, so they may be good choices for replanting efforts.

Because the ALB is often first noticed by the public, the authors stress the importance of finding them sooner than later.

“We highlighted early detection as an important part of the eradication program because the faster they are found, the less they have spread,” Dr. Keena said. “Traps baited with pheromones and plant volatiles (plant smells) that our research group developed are a newer tool that is helping to detect this beetle, but all infestations found in the U.S. to date have been spotted by the public and brought to the managers’ attention.”

The authors hope that forest managers and others will put this insect profile to use.

Provided by: Entomological Society of America

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-04-online-resource-asian-longhorned-beetle.html#jCp

Emerging Scale Insects

Throughout many parts of the Midwest and Northeast, insect scale crawlers have emerged and begun feeding on a number of trees and shrubs. Crawlers are the newly hatched scales.
In some additional regions of the country they have already emerged and are starting to cause problems.

They are highly mobile and do not have the protective cover.  Crawlers are usually very small and may be difficult to see.


Scale insects are generally categorized as either armored scale or soft scale. Armored scales secrete a protective cover over their bodies and usually overwinter as eggs beneath the female cover. Soft scales are usually larger, lack the protective cover, but protect themselves with waxy secretions. Most soft scales overwinter as immature, fertilized females.

Scale insects feed on plant sap. With their piercing mouth parts, scale remove plant sap causing yellowing of leaves, reduced plant vigor, and branch dieback. Soft scale excrete, a sweet, sticky material called honeydew. The honeydew drips onto the foliage and branches below, which often attracts other insects. Also, an unsightly dark fungus called black sooty mold is commonly found growing on the honeydew.

An injection of Mauget’s insecticide Dinocide provides effective control for many types of scale.   The active ingredient in Dinocide is translaminar which means it is in both the xylem and the phloem. Dinocide moves through a tree quickly and will begin controlling scale 3-5 days following injection.

All the Trees Will Die, and Then So Will You

 
The polyphagous shot hole borer, a brown-black beetle  from southeast Asia, never gets bigger than a tenth of an inch. It breeds inside trees; pregnant females drill into trunks to create networks of tunnels where they lay their eggs. The beetles also carry a fungus called Fusarium; it infects the tunnels, and when the eggs hatch, the borer larvae eat the fungus.
Unfortunately Fusarium also disrupts the trees’ ability to transport nutrients and water. Holes where the beetle bored into the tree get infected and form oily lesions. Sometimes sugars from the tree’s sap accumulate in a ring around the hole—that’s called a “sugar volcano.” The tree dies, and the wee baby beetles fly off to continue the circle of disgusting life.

This would just be a scary story for arborists and tree-huggers, except: Fusarium dieback is on track to kill 26.8 million trees across Southern California in the next few years, almost 40 percent of the trees from Los Angeles to the Nevada border and south to Mexico. That’s more than just an aesthetic tragedy. It means that thousands of human beings are going to die, too.

I’m not just being a monkeywrenching fearmonger. Dead trees mean dead people, and scientists are finally starting to figure out why. In the 1990s, spurred by a program to plant half a million trees in Chicago, researchers started trying to quantify the value of a tree beyond the fact that one is, like, at least slightly more lovely than a poem. It’s a field of study today called ecosystem services. “I’ve been trying to quantify the impacts of trees on rainfall interception, pollutants in the atmosphere, cooling and energy used by buildings, CO2 stored and emitted,” says Greg McPherson, a research forester with the US Forest Service who conducted the latest study of SoCal’s trees. “But I think those are the tip of the iceberg.”

But fighting disease is a whole other question. What is a “dose” of nature? What’s the response curve? By what mechanism would a walk in the park alleviate, let’s say, heart disease? Is it the park? Or the walk? (Some Japanese researchers think trees literally emit life-giving chemicals, like that weird M. Night Shyamalan movie where trees kill people, but in reverse. No, wait, that’d be people killing trees, which actually happens. The converse, then.)

Whether the mechanism is stress reduction, pollution reduction, or increased physical activity, somehow trees make a difference. The biophysics is less important than the epidemiology. In 2013 another researcher with the US Forest Service named Geoff Donovan took advantage of the fact that another beetle, the emerald ash borer, killed 100 million trees across 15 states in the US. Using statistical models to rule out the impacts of a whole bunch of other potentially confounding factors—race, education, income—Donovan’s team was able to connect illness with places that had ash borer infestations and concomitant loss in tree cover (which you can see in satellite imagery).

His result: Counties with borers had 6.8 additional deaths per year per 100,000 adults from respiratory disease, and 16.7 deaths from cardiovascular disease. Over the arc of the paper, that means 100 million dead trees—roughly 3 percent of tree cover on average—killed 21,193 people. “The implicit thing I’m saying here is that if you either kept the trees or increased the amount, you’d get the opposite effect,” says Donovan, now on a sabbatical at Massey University’s Center for Public Health Research in New Zealand. “I don’t think it’s the worst assumption in the world.”

Donovan isn’t the only one on the case. A 2015 meta-analysis of the few studies that had tried to take up the issue showed that higher exposures to green space, even controlling for things like poverty and education level, indeed resulted in a statistically significant reduction in death from cardiovascular disease. Other outcomes, like higher-birthweight babies and lower rates of antidepressant prescriptions, have also shown up in the literature.

That means that if Southern California doesn’t somehow stave off the loss of 11 percent of its tree cover, that loss is going to be deadly over time. “It’d probably be unwise to try and just turn the crank and say, ‘That’s going to be X thousand people,’” Donovan says. But the risk isn’t one of overstatement. Southern California has a much higher population density than the area he studied. “You might anticipate a major public health impact.”

That’s what McPherson is worried about, too. He was collecting data on California trees and Fusarium dieback for a journal article when he met John Kabashima, an entomologist working for the University of California on the Fusarium problem—an invasive pest that wasn’t jeopardizing crops but landscape. Kabashima realized that McPherson’s data might be what he needed to get some bureaucratic attention. What McPherson had come up with was, as he says, “the first statewide assessment for California, and probably the first nationally to combine satellite data and field plot data, and to incorporate the benefits and services of trees.” By his count, if the beetles spread as widely as he’s predicting, it could cost $1.4 billion in lost ecosystem service benefits—not counting the public health cost.

The next step will be figuring out what to do about the bugs. “A normal response to an invasive pest means millions of dollars would be thrown at it,” Kabashima says. “This one has received hundreds of thousands.” The people he’s working with at least know that it’s not enough to cut down an infected tree. If you don’t chip it, the beetles inside survive to infect another host. And the little holes and sugar volcanoes tend to show up first1 on the north side of the trunk or limb. “You have to get out and walk around each tree, which we’re doing in Orange County parks,” Kabashima says. “We go out on off-road Segways. We can cover square miles in a day.”

The problem is, it takes a lot longer to grow experimental tree species and see if they’re up to spec than it does for drought, polyphagous shot borers, and fungus to do their work. The race is on—and not for all the usual reasons. “We don’t think of trees as something essential to our urban infrastructure, like roads or sewers. In fact, we see them as something that can interfere with those things,” Donovan says. “But health benefits are where it’s at. Trees are an essential part of our public health infrastructure.” If you believe that the ballpark value of a statistical human life, stated most coldly, is around $7 million, then the potential of tens of thousands of additional lives lost makes the cost of saving trees, and getting healthier ones planted, a bargain.

1 UPDATE 5/9/17 10:20 AM Corrected to more accurately reflect the progress of polyphagous shot hole borer infestation.
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