From: Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>
>...and most recently, Worcester, Massachusetts, a town on the edge of the great Northern hardwood forest.

fwiw, there have been a number of interesting developments wrt to the asian longhorn beetle in worcester:

1.  soil treatment of imidacloprid is now off the table (at one point, aphis was trying to use soil treatments at 3x the epa limit per acre)...this is positive.

2.  when the beetles were first discovered in 2008, "thousands" of adult beetles were found.  the only action taken to reduce the beetle population thus far has been the removal of 25,000 trees.  in 2009, only 29 beetles have been found.  this despite a huge pr effort (radio ads, billboards, signs on bus's, etc) to locate beetles.

so, somewhere between 150,000 trees (aphis's estimate) and 650,000 trees (my estimate) are going to be trunk injected with imidacloprid in order to eradicate a population of insects who's visible numbers dropped so dramatically in the first year of tree removal.

unfortunately, folks that probably should be working against this treatment have become involved in a research project...and are in favor of the treatment program....even calling worcester county "lucky" to have such research going on here.

in any case, it isn't over yet, treatments aren't scheduled to start until spring.....

deknow

____________________________________________________________
Nutrition
Improve your career health. Click now to study nutrition!
http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/c?cp=Ip5adhibchbxAKszFTqalgAAJ1GYh4LMlrx5Sko2bwEETtn7AAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASQwAAAAA=

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Access BEE-L directly at:
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L