The
wood-boring Japanese cedar long-horned beetle, Callidiellum rufipenne,
was detected in trap sites in Atlantic, Burlington
Camden, Gloucester, and Monmouth Counties last
month, NJDA officials confirmed today. The beetle
was first detected in the eastern United States
in 1997 in North Carolina and in Connecticut in
1998 prompting state and federal agencies to search
for the pest in the Garden State this year. During
the month of April, under the federally-sponsored
Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey program (CAPS),
staff from NJDA's Division of Plant Industry and
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Plant
Protection and Quarantine (APHIS/PPQ) conducted
surveys at ten sites in six New Jersey counties.
The sites were selected at the beginning of the
year and included a fence company, cedar mills,
a nursery and natural stands of Eastern red cedar.
The beetle was subsequently found at six of ten
sites. The two sites in Ocean County, both natural
stands of Eastern red cedar, have not yet produced
positive finds but monitoring will continue every
two weeks at least through May. There is currently
no approved chemical control for the pest, leaving
elimination of the infested tree as the only means
of eradication. NJDA's control efforts will focus
on infested nursery stock, which, according to
state law, must be free of plant pests as a condition
of certification and sale. To assist in this effort,
NJDA has alerted growers and shippers of nursery
stock to the presence of the pest and its nursery
inspection staff will include the beetle in its
list of pests to watch for. Questions or comments
may be directed to NJDA's Division
of Plant Industry, 609-292-5441.
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