 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
|||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
News Release 6-6-2002 |
|
|
74,584 ACRES TREATED FOR GYPSY MOTH According to Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass, a total of 74,584 acres of forested and forested residential land have been treated in an effort to reduce the economic impact of gypsy moths in the following 14 counties: Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Mineral, Hardy, Grant, Monongalia, Pendleton, Pocahontas, Randolph, Upshur, Webster and Braxton. All counties except Braxton and Monongalia were treated under the Cooperative State-County-Landowner (CSCL) Program. This program includes the West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA), USDA Forest Service (USDA-FS), West Virginia University Cooperative Extension Service, county commissions and private landowners. The West Virginia Division of Forestry also assists the WVDA by providing support in conducting the spray project itself. The Program requires landowners to pay 57 percent of the actual cost of application and insecticide, and the USDA-FS covers the other 43 percent of this cost. The entire program is a year-long process that culminates in the treatment project in May. Treatment ran from May 3-23. The 170-acre spray block at Sutton Lake in Braxton County was an isolated infestation treated twice, seven days apart, with the bacterial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (Btk) under the WVDA Gypsy Moth Regulatory Program, while the spray block in Monongalia County was used for research. The insecticide Gypchek (a nucleopolyhedrosis virus) was used on this latter 1,300-acre block as a field trial. The insect growth regulator Dimilin (diflubenzuron) was used on 68,453 acres of State and private land and Btk was applied to 4,491 acres. WVDA Plant Industries Division Assistant Director S. Clark Haynes said that 327,870 acres were signed up and surveyed for gypsy moth egg masses during 2001. Of this, 196,400 acres qualified for treatment, but some landowners/managers chose not to treat, which reduced the final treatment figures to the 74,584-acre figure given above. The WVDA and Cooperative Extension Service will start taking requests for sign up for the 2003 CSCL Program July 1. On a very tragic note, a fatality occurred May 19, when the spray plane piloted by Kenny Yegella struck an electrical transmission static line near a Mineral County spray block. The pilot lost control and the plane crashed, causing the fatality. For more information, contact S. Clark Haynes, Assistant Director, WVDA Plant Industries Division, 304/558-2212 or chaynes@ag.state.wv.us.
|
|
|
|
|
©2001, 2002 West Virginia Department of Agriculture, All Rights Reserved |
|
|
Contact the Webmaster
|
|
|
|