Welcome to the Southern Research Station’s Insects, Diseases, and Invasive Plants Research Work Unit website. Our mission is to provide the basic biological and ecological knowledge and innovative management strategies required for management and control of native and non-native insect pests, disease pathogens and invasive plants in changing forest ecosystems. Learn more about us →
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Latest issue of Southern Forest Health Newsletter: Summer 2018
In this issue: Use of non-native wood by saproxylic insects, Eastern white pine workshop and initiative, SPB Road Shows shares knowledge with managers, Forest pathology at LTU, Andy Whittier completes thesis on teak nutrition, Undergraduate wins scholarship to study abroad, Asheville 6th graders learn about forest research, UGA students win presentation awards, and Jim Meeker completes 15 years with FHP.
News & Events
Definitive New Book on Saproxylic Insects
“About a third of all forest insect species are saproxylic,” says USDA Forest Service research entomologist Michael Ulyshen.
Ulyshen recently edited a definitive new book called Saproxylic Insects: Diversity, Ecology and Conservation and wrote four chapters.
Go get ‘em silver flies!
We are busy this spring releasing our new biological control agent, the silver fly.
Do you remember that hemlock woolly adelgid has 2 generations each year? Our best predators so far all feed on the fall/winter generation. So, unless all the adelgid are eaten or die, come spring time a whole new generation emerges to feed and reproduce. We are hopeful that theses silver flies will put a real hurtin' on that spring generation so we can reduce adelgid levels and relieve the pest pressure on our hemlock trees year round.
Spring means...crawlers
This is the time of year when the progrediens generation of hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) is out in full force crawling out of their white, woolly ovisacs and looking for a place to settle at the base of a nice green hemlock needle.
Latest Publications
- Response of twelve florida cogongrass (imperata cylindrica ) populations to herbicide treatment
Enloe, Stephen F.; Lucardi, Rima D.; Loewenstein, Nancy J.; Lauer, Dwight K. - Brood production by xyleborus glabratus in bolts from trees infected and uninfect ed with the laurel wilt pathogen, raffaelea lauricola.
Fraedrich, Stephen ; Harrington, Thomas ; Huang, Qiong ; Zarnoch, Stanley ; Hanula, James ; Best, Glenda Susan. - Shade and hemlock woolly adelgid infestation increase eastern hemlock foliar nutrient concentration
Lapham, Marika ; Miniat, Chelcy Ford; Mayfield, Albert E.III; Jetton, Robert M.; Brantley, Steven T.; Zietlow David R., ; Brown, Cindi ; Rhea, James R. - Bark colonization of kiln-dried wood by the walnut twig beetle: effect of wood location and pheromone presence
Mayfield, Albert ; Audley, Jackson ; Camp, Robert ; Mudder, Bryan ; Taylor, Adam - Effect of distance between baited multiple-funnel traps on catches of bark and wood-boring beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Cerambycidae) and associates in North-Central Georgia
Miller, Daniel R.; Crowe, Christopher M.