Detecting the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid

摘要

The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA), Adelges tsugae, is no stranger to land managers and small woodlot owners downstate in the Hudson Valley, and Long Island but it was detected for the first time in the Finger Lakes region in 2008. The HWA is an invasive forest pest imported from Japan and China that has been killing Hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis and T. caroliniand) on the east coast from the southern Appalachian Mountains to New York and New England. The HWA's impact is dramatic in the southern forests where hemlocks exhibit little resistance and die a few years after becoming infested. In the north, the situation is quite different where some infested trees survive for ten years or more. Mortality in the Northeast occurs primarily in the more southerly regions of New York's Hudson River Valley, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. It's still too early to tell how severe mortality will be in the upstate regions of New York and in northern New England.