Country: United States

Title: New detections of Sirex noctilio Fabricius in Pennsylvania and New York, and biocontrol efforts – United States

Contact:
Lynn Evans-Goldner, PPQ’s Sirex noctilio National Program Coordinator, (301) 734-7228

Report: On October 1, 2007, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the detection of one female Sirex noctilio woodwasp in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. This woodwasp was collected from a trap placed on private property. Monroe County is within the State’s Pocono Mountains region and is adjacent to Warren and Sussex Counties, New Jersey. This detection is associated with a 600-trap survey effort being conducted cooperatively by APHIS’ Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) program and Pennsylvania’s Departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources throughout central areas of the State. This survey area within Pennsylvania is part of a multi-state detection and delimiting survey that is ongoing in high-risk areas throughout the United States.

On November 5, APHIS also confirmed the detection of a single female Sirex noctilio woodwasp collected from a trap placed on private property in Cortland County, New York. Cortland County is located in south central New York State and is adjacent to previously reported S. noctilio positive counties. In 2007, more than 200 traps were set as part of a survey effort for S. noctilio conducted by APHIS’ Plant Protection and Quarantine program in New York counties that had not previously reported positive detections of the pest.

To date, cooperative State and Federal survey efforts have detected S. noctilio in 6 Pennsylvania counties, 1 Michigan county, 29 New York counties, and 1 Vermont county. In other countries, where S. noctilio has been inadvertently introduced, biological control programs have been developed for this wood boring pest of Pinus spp. The first North American pilot study involving a controlled release of the Sirex biocontrol nematode (Beddingia siricidicola) was conducted in 2006 in New York State. These nematodes were imported from Australia.

A second controlled release of the Sirex biocontrol nematode was made in central New York on October 1-3, 2007. PPQ personnel from New York and the Center for Plant Health Science and Technology cooperated to fell and inoculate 95 trees with nematodes across four sites in Oswego and Onondaga Counties. One site contained red pine, while the others had Scots pine. All trees inoculated in this effort showed signs of heavy attack by S. noctilio. As in the initial pilot study, all trees in the second study will be removed from the field before insect emergence so as to prevent the nematodes from escaping into the environment. The APHIS Environmental Service group prepared a Biological Assessment and an Environmental Assessment in support of this work.

Under IPPC standards, Sirex noctilio is considered to be a pest that is present (localized in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont) and subject to official control in the United States.
 

Posted Date: Nov. 14, 2007, 9 a.m.