Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Administrative Liaison’s to the Multistate 5-year Research Project: Mark Hutton introduced himself and then updated us on coming changes to the multistate system. Due to the changes at NIFA oversight on the projects will be shifting to the experiment stations in each region. Tom Kuhar asked what the regional experiments systems were. There are four multistate regions. We are in the Northeast region. The other three regions are the Western, North Central and Southeastern.

NIFA Liaison to the Multistate 5-year Research Project: Our liaison, Erica Kistner Thomas could not join us due to a family emergency. However, she did provide a videotaped update, which Hamilton played. She talked about how NIFA is ramping up in terms of hiring additional national program leaders (NPL) (going from 40 to 50). Right now she is the only entomologist but this will be changing in January 2022. The other NPL’s that we may interact with in terms of grant programs are Vijay Nandula and Logan Appenfeller. She then discussed the AFRI programs (Pollinator Health and Pest and Beneficial Species in Agricultural Production Systems), the AFRI New Investigator SEED Grants, and the Crop Protection and Pest Management (CPPM).

Next year’s meeting: The group discussed and agreed to hold the 2021 meeting in conjunction with the eastern branch of the Entomological Society of America’s annual meeting in March 2023. The meeting will be held in Providence, RU. Hutton confirmed that this would be okay even though its outside of the normal reporting period.

Annual Reporting: Hamilton discussed the need to develop an annual report for the project that need to be submitted within 60 days of the meeting. The group decided that each member present would send Hamilton a summary of their work to date. Hamilton will then compile the material into a report, circulate it for comment and then submit the report to NIMSS.

Each attendee then gave a short state-based report:

Michigan: Wilson has taken over the work that Larry Gut was doing. This involved looking at attract and kill systems around apple orchards, perimeter trapping next to woods and relating presence with damage. Low populations in Michigan may be impacting this. She is also trying to get Rescue to bring back their traps and working on optimizing damage thresholds. She is not sure where she will be taking BMSB research yet. Her last project involved Tj releases by a new master’s student who released 2000 adult Tj and deployed sentinel egg masses. All the egg masses caught Tj and/or endemic parasitoids.

New Jersey: Nielsen reported that that she published on the impact of plant volatiles on B<SB nymphs and the influence on BMSB diapause termination. She participated in two projects, the ARS areawide project and the USDA BMSB SCRI grant. Nielsen then reported that BMSB populations were lower than expected this year and that she has a new graduate student, Emma Watson, that will be examining the impact of insectary plans on Trissolcus japonicus (Tj) establishment and impact. She will also look at the impact of buckwheat insectary plants use in orchards has on orchard management practices.

Hamilton reported that he has been doing more work with spotted lanternfly (SLF) but has two undergraduate researchers looking at the response of Tj and BMSB nymphs to a variety of plant volatiles using a four-arm olfactometer system.

Pennsylvania: Krawczyk reported the main thing he worked on trapping using different trapping techniques because some industry folks complained that their traps are not being used. His results show that the current standards use is the most effective. He could not get the panel trap used in the west to work because they get covered with leaves during September and October. He then stated that the Rescue are no longer available. That leaves the pyramid and clear sticky card traps. He also participated in the areawide project but didn’t see much difference between treatments. Like Hamilton he is currently more concentrated on SLF. He also observed less BMSB than expected.

Virginia: Bergh (Tree Fruit) reported that his group published three BMSB related publications last year, one on the effect of host plants and habitat type on seasonal Tj population changes, a second paper on effects of border habitat type (forest, urban, agriculture, etc.) on BMSB captures, and a third on the use of use of pheromone trap transects in orchards next to wooded going 50m into both areas to look at spatial temporal changes in BMSB capture rates during the growing season. He was involved in the ARS areawide project that ended this year and that the results are being compiled. He continued his Tj redistribution project at 9 sites throughout Virginia and monitored both BMSB and Tj. This year he detected Tj at four of the nine sites, one of which was a new detection. Finally, his master student Jerrod Dyer completed his thesis this year. He finished two two-year projects looking at the effect of the yellow sticky card traps position in tree of heaven on Tj detections and looking at the relationship between BMSB captures and Tj captures during the growing season.

Kuhar (Vegetables) reported that he wasn’t as busy as Chris with BMSB and Tj work this year. He was part a study that was published this year by Tracy Leskey on refining pheromone lures across the US and Europe. He evaluated insecticide work in edamame that was published in arthropod management tests and revised an experiment station publication on BMSB. He and his students gave presentations at various meetings. He finished work looking at ghost trap usage in sweet corn in conjunction with the University of Kentucky. Unfortunately, the electric fence around the plots didn’t keep black bears from destroying the plots. He had a student working on looking the impacts on edamame from BSM feeding since its very susceptible to damage. Another student with another department is looking at what feeding does to the chemical in the seeds. His is kind at the end of working with this insect but still has several publications that need to write. He will continue doing insecticide trails with new products that come to the marketplace. Currently there are some new promising products.

Accomplishments

• Refinement of BMSB monitoring methods using clear sticky traps
• Evaluation of landscape variables in different eco-zones on BMSB density
• Refinement of development models 
• Optimization of damage thresholds
• Evaluation of new insecticides for BMSB management
• Evaluation of BMSB impact in edamame
• Recovery and redistribution of Trissolcus japonicus in fruit orchards
• Refinement of management recommendations for fruit and vegetable growers

Publications

Leskey, T.C., H. Andrews, A. Bády, L. Benvenuto, I. Bernardinelli, B. Blaauw, P. Bortolotti, L. Bosco, E. Di Bella, G. Hamilton, T. Kuhar, D. Ludwick, L. Maistrello, G. Malossini, R. Nannini, L. Nixon, E. Pasqualini, M. Preti, B. Short, L. Spears, L. Tavella, G. Vétek, and N. Wiman. 2021. Refining pheromone lures for the invasive Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) through collaborative trials in the USA and Europe. J. Econ. Entomol. doi: 10.1093/jee/toab088

Quinn, N.F., E.J. Talamas, T.C. Leskey, and J.C. Bergh. 2021. Seasonal captures of Trissolcus japonicus (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) and the effects of habitat type and tree species on detection frequency. Insects. 12: 1–12

Bergh, J.C., W.R. Morrison III, J.W. Stallrich, B.D. Short, J.P. Cullum, and T.C. Leskey. 2021. Border habitat effects on captures of Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in pheromone traps and fruit injury at harvest in apple and peach orchards in the Mid-Atlantic, USA. Insects 12(5), 419; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050419

Sutton, K., H. Doughty, T. Kuhar, and S. Rideout. 2021. Evaluation of insecticides to control southern green stink bug in edamame, 2020. Arthropod Management Tests, Volume 46, Issue 1, 2021, tsab081, https://doi.org/10.1093/amt/tsab081

Lopez, L., T. Kuhar, S. Taylor, and K. Sutton. 2021. Biology and Management of Brown Marmorated Stink Bug in Mid Atlantic Soybean.  Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication. No. ENTO-450NP.  https://resources.ext.vt.edu/contentdetail?contentid=3212

Presentations

Research

Dyer J.E., E.J. Talamas, T.C. Leskey, and J.C. Bergh. 2020. Sampling Trissolcus japonicus using yellow sticky traps: Does location in the tree canopy matter?” Entomological Society of America, November 11-25 2020. Virtual

Hadden, W.T., T.C. Leskey, and J.C. Bergh. 2020. Retention of Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) adults and nymphs on wild and cultivated host trees as a proxy for host acceptability at different points in the growing season. Entomological Society of America, November 11-25 2020. Virtual

Hamilton, G. and P. Girod. 2020. Halyomorpha halys in New Jersey: The more we know, the more we know we don’t know? – Monitoring, adventive population of Trissolcus japonicus and biological control. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting.

Dyer, J., E. Talamas, T. Leskey, and C. Bergh. 2020. Are captures of Trissolcus japonicus correlated with those of its host, Halyomorpha halys? Cumberland-Shenandoah Fruit Workers Conference, December 2-4, Winchester, Virginia. Virtual

Hadden, W., T. Leskey, and C. Bergh. 2020. Deciphering the seasonal host use patterns of Halyomorpha halys on select deciduous plants. Cumberland-Shenandoah Fruit Workers Conference, December 2-4, Winchester, Virginia. Virtual

Bergh, C., A. Edwards, C. MacRae, and N. Brandt. 2020. Re-distributing Trissolcus japonicus in Virginia: 2020 Update. Cumberland-Shenandoah Fruit Workers Conference, December 2-4, Winchester, Virginia. Virtual

McDougall, R., D. Ludwick, T. Leskey, G. Krawczyk, C. Bergh, Y.-L. Park, and A. Nielsen, 2020. Effects of land use on the natural enemies of brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys). Cumberland-Shenandoah Fruit Workers Conference, December 2-4, Winchester, Virginia. Virtual

Ben-Zvi, Y., G. Hamilton and C. Hawkings. 2021. The effects of volatile organic compounds on host seeking behavior of Trissolcus japonicus. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting.

Dyer, J.E., E.J. Talamas, T.C. Leskey, and J.C. Bergh. 2021. Halyomorpha halys egg mass abundance and detections of its egg    parasitoid, Trissolcus japonicus, in wild host trees baited with aggregation pheromone. Symposium: Research Advances in Invasive Pests by Early-Career Scientists, Entomological Society of America Eastern Branch, March 22 – 24. Virtual

Kuhar, T. 2021. Update on BMSB from the Mid-Atlantic U.S. BMSB Virtual SCRI Stakeholder Advisory Panel Meeting, February 17, 2021 Virtual.

Kuhar, T. P. 2021. Insect pest response to vegetable soybean genotypes bred for commercial edamame production in Virginia.  2021 Soybean Breeders virtual workshop: Entomology and Breeding Innovation, February 22-24, 2021. https://www.soybase.org/meeting_presentations/soybean_breeders_workshop.

Sutton, K. Kuhar T.P., Rideout S., and Doughty H. 2021. Developing an IPM program for edamame in Virginia. Entomological Society of America Eastern Branch. March 23, 2021. Virtual.

Woobey, J., Ben-Zvi, Y., G. Hamilton and C. Hawkings. 2021. The influence of volatile organic compounds on the life stages of Halyomorpha halys and implications for biological control. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting.

Extension

Kuhar, T. Fall Vegetable Pest Updates, VCE AG Today Virtual Meeting, October 29, 2020.

Kuhar, T. Fall Vegetable Pest Updates, Shenandoah Valley Vegetable Grower Virtual Meeting, October 29, 2020

Bergh, C. Virtual presentations to tree fruit producers in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland on March 31, April 7, April 14, April 21, April 28, May 5, May 12, May 19, and May 26, 2021

Bergh, C. In-person orchard meetings with tree fruit producers in Virginia on April 21, May 5, May 19, and June 2, 2021

Bergh, C. Public Open House at the Winchester AREC, August 14, 2021

Kuhar, T. Vegetable Production Meeting, Fancy Gap, VA, Jan 14, 2021

Kuhar, T. Chattanooga Elementary Schools – Invasive Species Chat with an Expert – Virtual – Feb 23, 2021.

Kuhar, T. Virginia Coop. Ext. In-service Training – Urban vegetable production, Virtual, March 3, 2021

Kuhar, T. VA Association of Biological Farming Conference, Roanoke, VA, March 18, 2021

Kuhar, T. Virginia Coop. Ext. In-service Training – Organic Vegetables, Virtual, March 22, 2021

Kuhar, T. Southside, VA vegetable Production - virtual meeting – VCE Joanne Jones, Sep 2, 2021

Kuhar, T. Southside, VA vegetable Production - meeting – Phenix, VA, Nov 17, 2021