Pest Trapping Pt 2

Pest Trapping Pt 2

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. It’s trapping season for invasive pests as the Washington Department of Agriculture begins the hunt for Japanese beetles, spongy moths, apple maggots, and Asian Giant Hornets.

Acting Communications Director, Karla Salp says it’s the second year for Japanese beetles, that will likely take more than a couple of years …

SALP … “I would say more like 10, at least. Yeah, it’s going to probably take quite a while because we have such a large population and that’s really, the question is, it’s still to be determined whether we can actually eradicate them or not because we’re starting with a massive population really of 24,000 beetles that we caught. And there were a lot that we didn’t.”

Next month, Salp says it’s the Asian Giant Hornet …

SALP … “Our efforts with Asian Giant Hornet are going to be in Whatcom County exclusively this year. That’s not to say people who want to hang their traps, because we have our Citizen Scientist Project, can hang traps in other counties as well and that really sort of helps us monitor just in case they were to spread beyond where we were looking.”

Salp says they’re getting pretty good at this …

SALP … “And I really think that we have been very effective at that. Spongy Moth, for example, we’ve had a program for almost 50-years. We have introductions basically every year and we still don’t have an established population and that’s because of 50-years of vigilance.”

Trapping instructions are available on the WSDA website, but if you see a pest that concerns you, snap a picture and send it the Department of Agriculture www.agr.wa.gov

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