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Beetle mania
May 21, 2025
A hemlock infested with woolly adelgid
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Late last summer I noted in this column the observation of far more purple loosestrife than in years past; some of you concurred. I knew that there had been a biological control in place in the Northwest Corner and the thought, “Is the biocontrol no longer working?” nudged me from time to time over the winter.
Biocontrol is the science of enlisting a natural predator to control a plant or animal that has become invasive and is harming an ecosystem. I had read about one that is being developed — but not yet approved — to curtail phragmites. Given its prevalence and destructiveness to habitat, a biocontrol for phragmites would be a game changer in the United States.
There is already a viable biocontrol against hemlock woolly adelgid, the insect that has been decimating hemlock trees on the east coast, and the scientist working on this biocontrol is right here in Connecticut.
Carole Cheah is an agricultural scientist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and I spoke with her recently.
The woolly adelgid is a small, aphid-like insect that comes from Japan where it feeds on Hemlock and Spruce trees. It was accidentally introduced in Virginia in the 1950’s where it found Hemlock trees here to its liking. The woolly adelgid’s telltale white fluff is easy to spot on hemlock stems. It has been decimating trees for years here, and many have already died.
Dr. Cheah has been studying the issue for over 30 years. After her predecessor at the CAES traveled to Japan and brought back the one insect that only feeds on woolly adelgid, the lady beetle (Sasajiscymnus tsugae), Carole worked to understand the viability of introducing this insect to the U.S.
These lady beetles are black and the size of a sesame seed. Since they only feed on woolly adelgid, the potential of lady beetle damage to other plants and insects was not an issue, as can be the case with introducing biocontrol. The key to this solution’s viability was, then, rearing the lady beetle for mass production. Even though the beetles overwinter in mild winters, they do still need to be produced in labs. Funding was accessed to set up an operation to research and rear the beetles in Connecticut and, when funding ran out, Jayme Cabrera, founder of Tree Savers in Jermyn, Pennsylvania, continued to rear them. Tree Savers now remains the sole production source of these beetles which are sold to the public. They are delivered in the spring and should be released when received. An arborist is not needed for release.
Biocontrol for hemlock woolly adelgid obviates chemical control, especially important as chemicals containing Imidacloprid and Dinotefuran, used by arborists against woolly adelgid, are also harmful to beneficial insects.
Currently,Tree Savers has a waiting list for beetles, but last year Dr. Cheah received extra beetles due to over-production by Tree Savers. She released them in the Northwest Corner, specifically in Mohawk Mountain’s Black Spruce bog, at Dean Ravine in Falls Village, around Furnace Brook and at Gold’s Pines.
My final question to Dr. Cheah was about the purple loosestrife re-appearance. She found my observation interesting. It turns out that Donna Ellis, from University of Connecticut, had led the beetle rearing program for loosestrife biocontrol until the USDA funding ended in 2014. Donna then retired in 2019 and since then, nobody has been working on this invasive plants proliferation.
On a different note, for the second year, The Cornwall Garden Club is hosting a native plant sale where you can add gorgeous native pollinators to your garden at gentle prices. I even grew some from seed! Please join us Saturday, May 24, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the veranda of The Pink House Restaurant located at 34 Lower River Road in West Cornwall.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
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Religious textile sculptures by John Brendan Guinan
Natalia Zukerman
"So It Goes,” the 2025 summer exhibition at the Wassaic Project opened on May 17 and runs through Sept. 13.
The show features work from 43 artists responding to cycles of horror and desensitization.
The title “So it goes” is a nod to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.In the book, the phrase appears every time death or tragedy is mentioned, acting as a resigned, almost numb acknowledgment of suffering. In this context, the show uses the phrase to highlight how people become emotionally desensitized to violence, crisis, and trauma. Through humor, ritual, protest, and reflection, the works challenge us to feel what we’ve learned to overlook.
Wassaic Project is at 37 Furnace Bank Road in Wassaic and is open Thursdays through Sundays all summer.
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Gary Dodson had a close encounter with a snake on the Esopus Creek in early May. He was not inclined to inspect the creature more closely.
Patrick L. Sullivan
I took a few days off at the start of May to do a standard task and to do something new, in keeping with the theme of the 2025 fishing season, which by an astonishing coincidence is “Do Something New.”
The routine stuff was opening the house, assessing the mouse dropping situation, rearranging the DVDs into “regular” and “schlock,” and getting humiliated in my home river, the Esopus.
A new season hasn’t really started until I have cast numerous flies, picked with devilish cunning, to Esopus trout that could not possibly care less.
I did avoid the skunk, though. After four hours of flogging a wild rainbow decided to play, taking a brassie soft-hackle that Gary Dodson gave me.
I was also rewarded for my perseverance by the sight of Gary leaping about 18 feet in reverse after almost stepping on a snake curled up on a rock in the shallows. It was a move worthy of a 1970s kung fu movie.
Over the weekend I motored to an undisclosed location in the Catskills, to meet the members of a private fishing club I joined over the winter.
I did not ask directly how the members feel about publicity. I didn’t have to. They don’t like it.
So since the Catskill region is about 5800 square miles and contains six major rivers with innumerable tributaries, I think “the Catskills” is a suitably vague descriptor.
The first day we caravanned from spot to spot stocking trout and greeting the cooperating landowners.
One family put out an incredible spread for us, which was completely wasted on me as I had consumed a convenience store burrito earlier in the morning when I realized I was about to faint.
This was a grave tactical error which I will not repeat. However, it did come under the heading of trying something new.
And I didn’t faint.
The members were very welcoming and after the stocking we settled right into talking a lot of fishing guff. As guff goes I’d give it a B, but it was a small sample.
The next day we had a luncheon with the landowners, where I chatted with a fellow who is 90 and used to catch chubs and bake them in river clay in a streamside fire. He was about 10 when he did this. He said they were delicious. I privately doubted this, but I have learned over the years not to argue with 90 year old gents who allow me to clamber over their property to fish. So it’s official: Clay-baked chubs are a rare and refreshing treat. (This is something new, but I’m not going to try it.)
Over the years I have resisted joining fishing clubs, primarily because of the expense.
But this one I can afford.
It was an abrupt shift from the April steelhead adventure on the Salmon River in and around Pulaski, where I was introduced to plugging, drift boats and guides, and the new and uncomfortable experience of being a complete novice instead of an award-winning fly-fishing writer.
So I think that’s enough novelty for the 2025 season. And it’s only May.
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SHARON — The Sharon Housing Trust announced on April 28 that a previous grant from the Connecticut Department of Housing of $1 million had been doubled, enabling the Trust to pursue its plan to develop a four-building, 10-unit affordable rental campus on North Main Street.
The group plans to use the funds for beautification and repair projects on the six occupied affordable rental apartments at 91, 93 and 95 North Main Street, which it bought in 2023, and unify those buildings with the currently unoccupied former town community center building next door as a cohesive affordable housing development.
While the Trust does not own the community center, it has an option to lease the building from the town at a rate of $1 per year for 99 years, which it plans to pursue after the closing of the grant that is anticipated to occur on June 30.
The exterior of the building will remain largely unchanged, but the interior will be redeveloped for the construction of four additional apartments.
A preliminary proposal for the project was received positively by the Planning and Zoning Commission, though the Trust must apply for official approval for its completed site plans for the whole development and renovated floor plan for the community center building before it can begin construction.
Landscape designer and Sharon resident Lynden Miller, who is known for the restoration of Central Park’s Conservatory Garden among other accomplishments, has donated a landscape design for the proposed campus.
Trust President Richard Baumann said that the project’s aesthetic presence is important: “Our goal is to make it not only good affordable housing, but a nice little showpiece that the town can be proud of right there on the main drag.”
Baumann said that the new funds have made the vision possible since an earlier grant application, submitted by the town for federal money to finance the renovation of the community center, was denied earlier this year due to the program being oversubscribed. The Trust’s own application to the DOH had already been approved, but the state responded favorably when the Trust re-petitioned with a proposal for the development in its entirety. The DOH approved the amended application, granting the Trust the total amount it had initially sought from both applications.
Baumann felt the project will offer some relief to a town where the definition of an affordable housing demographic is rapidly expanding.
“People are worried about trades people or folks who run the cash registers, but I think it goes higher and broader than that,” Baumann said. “Our need is acute.”
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