WSU Entomology Mount Vernon

Our 2023 pub on leafhopper endosymbionts won the reviewers' choice award for the journal Environmental Entomology. Very excited and honored to be part of this group!

Yesterday was exciting! The Nottingham Entomology lab made our first experimental releases of sterile male spotted wing deosophila (SWD) at the NWREC. This new method, which is not yet approved for commercial use, could be the future of pest management for blueberries, raspberries, and other fruit crops that are attacked by SWD.

Spotted lanternfly. These nymphs are absolutely everywhere in Northern Virginia right now. I was finding them on just about every plant species i looked at. Not sure if I've ever seen an insect this abundant and on so many different plant species.

Whether you call them lightningbugs or fireflies... these insects are actually a type of beetle!

They're in the family Lampyridae (get it? lamp...). So maybe we should call them "lightning beetles"?

Either way, we can all agree they are magical creatures, and another reason to respect, not hate, insects.

Shots from our growing predatory ground beetle collection (carabidae). Masters student Adriana Barsan is finding greater diversity and abundance of these slug and pest eaters in crop rotation plots with low or no tillage and long-term perennial cover crops.

A few, not-too-shabby, research sites in Skagit and Whatcom counties, Washington.

Congrats Molly Sayles for being awarded the Karen P DePauw award for leadership! This univeraity-wide award is a bigtime honor, that is well earned by Molly for her leadership in Pear IPM Extension and service. So proud of my outstanding PhD student!

2025 Nottingham Entomology lab. Another great crew!

New publication from the Nottingham Lab! Previous post doc Robert Orpet demonstrates the outcome of releasing predatory earwigs into pear orchards to control a top pest, pear psylla. 🍐🍐...
..
1. Earwigs hanging out on pears (not eating them!)
2. Pub title: doi.org/10.1111/eea.13536
3. Dr. Orpet with his famous earwig traps (aka the Hilton Hotel, named after previous earwig researcher Rick Hilton).
4. Great mention of the Hilton Hotel term in acknowledgments.
5. Video of an earwig fighting off a friend and then eating a pear psylla nymph.

Kaolin clay (Surround) is an insect repellent used in commercial agriculture. It's approved for use in organic production. Here, masters student .winslow is testing Suuround for control of blueberry aphids, which vector scorch virus. She's applying it in the fall to prevent the overwintering generation from colonizing the plants.

Nottingham Entomology Lab has been on tour, presenting research findings and proposing new projects.

Is there a new savior for our favorite fruit?

The worst pest of raspberries and blueberries, spotted wing drosophila (SWD, pic 1 right and pic 2) took over Washington state, and most of the US, around 2010. Since then, growers have had to spray insecticides much more frequently to prevent this insect from laying eggs in ripening fruit, which ruins their marketability. Luckily, 2 of SWD's natural enemies from its native range in Asia appeared in the PNW around 2019. They are tiny "parasitoid" wasps (pic 1, left) that lay their eggs in SWD maggots, which eventally kills the developing flies.

Another key player is the wild Himalayan blackberry (pic 3) that covers tons of Western Washington, and serves as a wild host for SWD. These prickily berry covered vines are a huge nuisance to both landowners and fruit growers, but we think they may act as a sentinal breeding ground for our new friends, the parasitoid wasps!

So, our lab and others have been placing SWD and parasitoid traps (pics 4, 5, 6) in Himalayan blackberry across the state to study the spread of these new "parasitoid wasps" and see how likely they are to suppress SWD. This week, our lab (with help from .molly) deployed traps on the San Juan Islands, to see just how far these wasps have spread!

My legs are covered in tiny cuts, but my belly is full of blackberries (...and maggots ...and wasps)