There’s an effort scheduled in Ontario County this week to try and combat an insect that can cause serious damage to hemlock trees.
The pest is called the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect native to Japan that was found in the U.S. starting in the 1980s.
It feeds on hemlock trees, and in an effort to protect those trees, a natural predator of the adelgid — Leucotaraxis silver flies — will be released on the southern end of Honeoye Lake on Wednesday.
Nick Dietschler, a research support specialist at Cornell University who is involved with this effort, said they are targeting some public lands in Briggs Gully.
“So this is a really important, big deep gully … (both sides) of the cliffs and the gully are lined with hemlock," he said. "It’s a really important tree species in this specific gully and in gullies throughout the Finger Lakes region."
Dietschler said the silver flies feed on the eggs of the hemlock woolly adelgid, and he added that chemicals are also used to deal with this pest problem.
“Chemical treatments are applied to keep these trees alive in the in the short term. And then the ultimate goal is to get a suite of bio-control predators to feed on the adelgid,” Dietschler said.
He added that by using the natural predator insects, “We can eventually move away from these widescale chemical treatment strategies.”
A group of students from the Cummings Nature Center will help release the predator insects.
Staffers from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association and other agencies will be at the Wednesday release of the flies.
Dietschler said the release of the silver flies is happening at other locations around the state, with the New York State Hemlock Initiative, a Cornell University project, that is researching biological control solutions for hemlock woolly adelgid.
