Letter from North Carolina: A Death in the Forest: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker Annotated
Excerpts of an abstract–In 1951, an Asian insect known as the hemlock woolly adelgid was discovered near a park in Richmond, Virginia, which contained imported evergreens.
Describes how globalization and climate change affect the spread of invasive species.
Bayer makes an artificial nicotine insecticide, Imidacloprid, which is injected into the soil and carried through a tree by the root system, killing the feeding bugs.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jeffrey Joy // Jul 10, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I have a large stand of hemlocks surrounding several vernal pools on my property. I can’t use insecticides but would be very interested in insect controls for the adelgid infestation currently going on. Where can I purchase these beetles?
2 Patrick Horan // Jan 13, 2008 at 2:18 pm
This is a sad story about the fate of “specimen” hemlocks in the Southern Appalachians with a lot of good historical information about the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) infestation in the eastern US.
It is also a very misleading propaganda piece for the chemical industry, suggesting that biological control of HWA is ineffective. In fact I have found the HWA predator beetle Sasajiscymnus tsugae to be very effective for HWA control in both wild and neighborhood applications, so long as there are enough hemlocks to support a beetle population.
Leave a Comment