2/2/07

The Boston Globe/The Washington Post

The Boston Globe and The Washington Post publishing the Associated Press release, February 2, 2007


UVM researcher targets hemlock pest with whey and fungus
MONTPELIER, Vt. --A University of Vermont researcher is using the dairy product whey and a fungus to take aim at a pest that has ravaged East Coast hemlocks.

Scott Costa said the method will allow an insect-killing fungus to grow in the field rather than in a laboratory, cutting down on the prohibitive costs.

"The technology gets over some of the financial and physical restraints," said Costa, assistant professor in UVM's plant and soil science department.

The fungus and sweet whey, a cheese-making byproduct, is sprayed on trees to kill the hemlock woolly adelgid, an exotic pest that is wiping out native trees from Tennessee to Massachusetts. As the fungus reproduces in the whey, Costa and his graduate students have evidence that the spores will spread throughout the trees, piercing the skin of the insects.

The technology has worked in the lab and on trees in Massachusetts.

"Now we have work to transfer it out into natural settings," said Costa, who is seeking funding for small-scale spraying by helicopter.

Costa, who has received a provisional patent, hopes to have the technology operating in two years.

"We're not going to get rid of the hemlock woolly adelgid, we're going to manage it," he said.

Still that's good news.

"HWA is a pretty noxious insect. Certainly, any kind of controls that we can come up with that are ecologically safe and effective is well worth it," said Talbot Trotter, a research ecologist with U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service in Hamden, Conn.

Infested trees have been found in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, not far from Vermont. 

Although no adelgids have been found on native trees in Vermont, Costa thinks the insect has crossed the state line.

The state has banned the importation of hemlocks -- nursery stock, boughs, hemlock bark mulch -- from infested areas of the U.S. and Canada. Shipments of hemlock must be inspected for pests, before and after shipping.

One advantage the state has is that cold winters kill the adelgid, which take about five years to kill trees in the north and two to three years in the south, Costa said.

To fight the bug, beetles have been released, and trees sprayed with oils and injected with chemical pesticides.

Costa thinks his "whey-based fungal micro-factory" technology has broader applications than adelgid control.
 
If it can down reduce the use of chemical pesticides - "even by a small amount it would be amazing," he said.

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On the Net:
Hemlock Woolly Adelgid: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/hwa/

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