We hope you find our new look refreshing and easy to navigate. Kudos to Together Editing of Redwood City, CA for their creative design and ongoing maintenance of this new site. Their skills have made it easy for us to keep you updated on the activities of the association. Our thanks go out to Melissa LeVangie for her past service in the creation of our original website. Melissa maintained the old website until just this past June.
Thanks to all who attended this pilot PDS workshop on September 12th in Wellesley. Attendee evaluations and the pictures indicated it was a workshop well worth repeating, and we hope to offer it several times more in different locales around the state. Instructors David Lefcourt, City of Cambridge Arborist and Tree Warden, and Rick Harper, UMass Extension Assistant Professor of Urban & Community Forestry, have shared their presentations from the Wellesley workshop. You can find links to each slide show, plus handouts about soil volume and texture, on our Professional Development Series page. The outdoor hands-on demonstrations received rave reviews, but they can only be viewed by attending a future workshop!
The UMass Extension Landscape Message for September 6th reported that an additional sixteen beetles have been captured since the first Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) of the season was captured on July 21st within the Worcester County regulated area. Continue to monitor not only for the beetle but for other signs as well, including oviposition sites, exit holes, frass, weeping, and maturation feeding. The 13 host genera to monitor are: Acer (Maple), Betula (Birch), Ulmus (Elm), Salix (Willow), Aesculus (Horsechestnut), Fraxinus (Ash), Platanus (Plane Tree), Populus (Poplar), Celtis (Hackberry), Sorbus (Mountain Ash), Albizia (Mimosa), Cercidiphyllum (Katsura) and Koelreuteria (Golden Raintree). Find everything you need to know about ALB, including identification tips, at the MDAR website.