Gypsy Moth Eradication & Apple Scholarships

Gypsy Moth Eradication & Apple Scholarships

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Gypsy moths can cause significant damage to forests and urban landscapes when the caterpillars feed on plants, shrubs and trees. In an effort to eradicate a population of the destructive gypsy moth discovered last summer in Tukwila the WSDA completed four ground spray applications of a biological insecticide around Tukwila in May. These earlier applications were meant to kill newly hatched gypsy moth caterpillars and is being followed up by a broader mating disruption application of a synthetic pheromone in early July. The July application is intended to prevent any small, undetected satellite populations of gypsy moth from becoming established.

The Washington Apple Education Foundation presents scholarships annually to students involved with the apple industry. Jennifer Witherbee, Executive Director of WAEF explains.

WITHERBEE: Students need to have a tie to the tree fruit industry and usually that is because their parents are employed in the industry. For some of the awards they are specific to certain high schools and those are high schools that are in tree fruit growing areas.This year WAEF scholarship recipients are receiving about $200-thousand dollars more than they did the prior year. We get to help about 165 students by the time we finish our summer renewals this year. The average award went up and it’s about $3500.

Witherbee says that the scholarship recipients are pursuing a variety of degree options.

WITHERBEE: We do like to communicate with them about how they can use that degree, regardless of what it is, in the tree fruit industry, since we seem to have a need for all types of talent, but they do not need to be planning to work in the tree fruit industry.

The new application period opens September 15th and will close on March 1, 2014.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.