Gypsy Moth Tracking

Gypsy Moth Tracking. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The time has come the orchardist said to speak of brightly colored cardboard traps set in trees. My apologies to author Lewis Carroll but according to Washington State Department of Agricultures’s Mike Louisell, it’s gypsy moth time again.

LOUISELL: We want to keep out of this state. We have found gypsy moth each year since 1977 in this state and detecting gypsy moth shows entomologists were a population of this pest may be developing.

The WDSA just finished a gypsy moth eradication program in Puyallup at one of the shopping malls. The moth can easily strip forests of foliage.

LOUISELL: It can also affect of course the horticulture, nursery, timber industry - agriculture. If we find it and if there’s a reproducing population, we eradicate it. It’s mainly found in western Washington in recent years but we do trap in each of the states 39 counties.

The last eradication took place in 2007. The moth has taken over a good part of the eastern U.S. but has not established in the west.

LOUISELL: And we want to keep it that way because with it comes quarantine issues that could harm agricultural products sales. We’re going to put about 20-thousand traps across the state. By September we’ll take down the traps. Every 2 to 3 weeks we check the traps to see if there’s any catches.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.