Historic, Archive Document

Do not assume content reflects current
scientific knowledge, policies, or practices.

USDA " Forest Service

forest insect & disease management
methods application group

2810 Chiles Rd. * Davis, Ca. 95616

NEWSLETTER

August 1976

The purpose of the Forest Insect
and Disease Management/Methods Appli¬
cation Group (FI&DM/MAG) Newsletter is
to inform our associates, on an informal
basis, of activities in which MAG is
involved and of significant accomplish¬
ments resulting from these activities.

We plan to issue three to four Newsletters
per year as needed. As an organization,
MAG is dedicated to a continual exchange
of information with Federal, State, and
local governmental units, academic
institutions, and private industry.

The Newsletter also will make
available information on improved survey
techniques, evaluation methods, and
forest pest management technology in
general. If you have developed techniques
that could make our jobs easier, or
results more valid, and wish to share
them with other specialists, we encourage
you to submit them. Your suggestions
and comments will be appropriately
accredited.

Publication of this first Newsletter
is timely since we are now fully opera¬
tional. All of the staff specialists
have been selected and are on board. We
have even progressed to the point where
one zealous entomologist saw fit to
design a banner for MAG.

During the first months of
existence, those on board were involved
primarily in getting the unit established,
purchasing furniture and equipment,
recruiting staff, establishing adminis¬
trative procedures, and preparing work
plans. Establishing a brand new unit
such as MAG can be a unique and rewarding
experience, and many fine people were
instrumental in getting us started.

This Newsletter covers activities by
the MAG staff up to June 1, 1976.

THE MAG STAFF

MAG is now fully staffed, and
since a number of the specialists
have come from outside the Forest
Service, it seems appropriate to
introduce them and describe their
backgrounds.

BILL CIESLA, Group Leader, came
to MAG from Region 1, Missoula, MT,
where he was Staff Director for Forest
Environmental Protection. Bill
received his academic training at the
State University, College of Environ¬
mental Sciences and Forestry at
Syracuse University. He has been with
the Forest Service since 1959, having
held assignments in the Southeastern
and Western United States. He has
been involved in designing survey and
biological evaluation techniques and
conducting pilot projects with promising
insecticides to control forest
defol i a tors.

Ray LuebbeLynne Whitcombe 3 Bill
Ciesla and Jack Barry

JACK BARRY, Pilot Project Specialist,
was a research biologist working as Plans
Officer and Test Director with the U.S.
Army Desert Test Center and Dugway Proving
Ground in Utah, where he was involved in
research and development of biological and
chemical agents and dissemination systems.
From 1971 to 1976, prior to joining MAG,
Jack was the U.S. Army project leader
supporting Forest Service FI&DM and
Missoula Equipment Development Center
(MEDC) activities in Region 1. Under the
cooperative agreement, the Army supported
the Forest Service by providing meteoro¬
logical information and spray deposit
sampling and assessment to pilot projects.

DAVE DRUMMOND, Plant Pathologist,
came to MAG from the Ontario Ministry of
the Environment where he was involved in
field surveys and research on the effects
of air pollutants to vegetation. Prior
to that, he was on the staff of the
Center for Air Environmental Studies at
Pennsylvania State University. The
research project at Penn State was aimed
at evaluating the effect of oxidant
pollution on northeastern forest tree
species. Dave received a Ph.D. at Penn
State after completing a B.S. and M.S.
in the School of Forestry at the
University of Missouri in 1966.

DAVE GRIMBLE, Survey Entomologist,
reported to MAG in May from the Applied
Forestry Research Institute, SUNY College
of Environmental Science and Forestry in
Syracuse, New York. His experience
includes survey and control of forest
defoliators such as the saddled prominent
and gypsy moth, and surveys of insect
parasites.

BILL KLEIN, Survey Improvement
Specialist, transferred to MAG from
Region 4, Ogden, Utah, where he was in
charge of the Region's Forest Insect
Detection and Evaluation activities.

Bill pioneered in the use of 35mm aerial
photography in estimating losses due to
mountain pine beetle in the Intermountain
Region and he will be active in implement¬
ing use of aerial photography for forest
insect surveys.

Dave Grimble, Eleanor Franz, Pam Elccm,
Da.ve Drummond 3 Bob Young and Bill Klein.

RAY LUEBBE, Mathematical
Statistician, was with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
in Washington D.C. for 5 years before
joining MAG. Ray has application and
teaching experience in mathematics and
computer systems. Since joining MAG
he has been involved in field consul¬
tation regarding sampling design and
has provided statistical analyses of
spray deposit and biological field
data.

BOB YOUNG, Biometrician, received
his academic training at the University
of California, Davis and worked as a
statistician specializing in crop
forecasting for the USDA Statistical
Reporting Service prior to joining
MAG. With SRS, Bob held assignments
in New Mexico, Iowa, Washington D.C.,
and California, plus two short-term
foreign assignments in Thailand and
South Vietnam.

ELEANOR FRANZ, Administrative
Technician, recently joined MAG from
Region 5 Engineering Staff, Construction
and Maintenance Unit, stationed at
Geotechnical Materials and Engineering
in Pleasant Hill, California. Eleanor
started her Forest Service career as a
clerk-typist on the Mt. Baldy District
of the Angeles National Forest in 1964.

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PAM ELAM, Clerk Dictating Machine
Transcriber, also came from Region 5
Engineering Staff, Construction and
Maintenance Unit in San Francisco and
has been with MAG since September 1975.

Her Forest Service background includes
positions as timber clerk and recep¬
tionist on the Grovel and and Summit
Ranger Districts and as payroll clerk
for the Mi-Wok District, all on the
Stanislaus National Forest.

LYNNE, WHITCOMBE, Clerk-Typist
for the MAG unit, is looking forward
to a position in her field, having
completed a B.A. in Biological Science
at California State University,

San Jose. Previously, she performed
duties as a Forestry Technician supporting
research activities in strip mine
reclamation for the Northeastern Forest
Experiment Station, Berea, Kentucky.

USE OF LARGE AIRCRAFT FOR FOREST SPRAYING

Extensive areas of spruce-fir
forests in northern Maine infested by
spruce budworm have led workers
involved in management of these in¬
festations to seek more efficient
systems for applying pesticides to
extensive areas of relatively gentle,
rolling terrain. Large, four-engine
aircraft have been used to some extent
in eastern Canada, particularly Quebec,
and as early as August 1975 (the time
MAG was first established), the Maine
Forest Service and the Northeastern
Area, State and Private Forestry,
requested MAG to assist in evaluation
of four-engine aircraft for treatment
of the Maine spruce budworm infestation
in 1976.

Bill Ciesla and Jack Barry
observed a DC-7 aircraft in August 1975,
and conducted field characterizations
in the Mohave desert of this aircraft
in January. They found the DC-7
capable of producing swath widths,
containing droplet densities of
20 drops/cm?, up to 3,700 ft. under
crosswind conditions. Later, two

four-engine aircraft, a C-54 (DC-4)
and a Lockheed Constellation, were
characterized in Arizona. It was
found that swath widths of high
flying large aircraft can be influenced
considerably by local meteorological
conditions, much more so than smaller
aircraft which tend to fly closer
to tree top level. Swath widths in
the Arizona trials varied from 300 ft.
in in-wind trials to 2,100 ft. in
crosswind trials. However, positive
sample cards were observed over 1
mile on some trials.

SPRAY DEPOSIT ASSESSMENT WORKSHOP

Assessment of aerial spray
deposits is an integral part of
maintaining quality control of aerial
application of insecticides to suppress
forest insects in research field
experiments and pilot and operational
control projects. In order to develop
specific recommendations concerning
samples, dyes, analytical procedures,
etc., for assessment of spray deposits
for projects coming up in the 1976 field
season, FI&DM/MAG joined forces with
the USDA Expanded Tussock Moth and
Gypsy Moth Programs and co-sponsored
a spray deposit assessment workshop
in Davis, CA on March 16-18, 1976.

The workshop was attended by approxi¬
mately 30 experts in this field repre¬
senting the Forest Service, APHIS,
several universities, private industry,
and Canada. A Proceedings has been
published and is available from either
of the three co-sponsors upon request.

A formal instruction manual outlining
alternative assessment techniques is
being prepared with a publication
target date of April 1977.

FI&DM IMPACT WORKSHOP

A workshop on impacts of forest
insects and diseases was sponsored by
FI&DM in A1burquerque, New Mexico,

April 27-29, 1976. Purpose of the

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workshop was to review progress made
in collection of loss data resulting
from National assignments and to
recommend direction for future work.
Representatives from Regions and Areas
described ^methods designed to gather
data on losses caused by fusiform rust,
scleroderis^canker, spruce beetle,
mountain pine beetle, gypsy moth and
other major insects and diseases.
Recomnendations for future action
included definition of loss data
requirements at the National and
Region/Area level, design and imple¬
mentation of a National Insect and
Disease Data 3ase System and a
cataloging of methods for gathering
loss data by specific insects and
diseases.

COMPUTERIZED MAPPING

Several Regions have expressed
interest in the use of computerized
mapping systems for summarization,
display, and storage of forest insect
and disease survey data. Computerized
mapping offers several advantages over
systems currently in use; it provides
a systematic means of summarizing data,
permitting regional, state-wide, forest,
or even national summaries; it provides
for more rapidly getting survey data
back to the land manager by eliminating
costly, time consuming hand computation
of acreages or numbers of infested trees
and hand preparation of survey maps; and
with proper handling of the data, it
would allow for preparation of composite
maps of a given outbreak over a period
of years, producing historical records
of insect and disease activity which
might in the future delineate chronic
problem areas.

A number of mapping systems have
been developed within the Forest Service,
but in a recently published report, the
Systems Development Action Planning Team
(SDAPT) recommended a temporary moratorium
on further development of these systems.

This was done to permit a thorough
evaluation of alternative systems
in order to identify which would
best meet the needs of the Forest
Service and be supported and maintained
on a National basis. This evaluation
was conducted by a special team under
the leadership of Jim Hogan, Region 2,
Denver, Colorado, Engineering Staff,
who presented the results of his
study team's effort and recommendations
at the FI&DM Impact Workshop in
A1burquerque.

MAG is working closely with
appropriate Forest Service Systems
Management Specialists at the National
level to make FI&DM needs in computer¬
ized mapping known. When a national
direction for Forest Service support
of computerized mapping systems is
defined, MAG will work with field units
to identify the systems or system most
suitable to FI&DM applications.

EVALUATION OF REGION 5 PEST DAMAGE

INVENTORY (PDI)

Dave Drummond and Ray Luebbe
accompanied Region 5 FI&DM personnel -
Jim Byler, Dick Smith and Ed Wood - to
the Klamath National Forest in northern
California, to observe the application
of the Pest Damage Inventory (PDI), a
system for measuring tree mortality
developed by Region 5 personnel. Ed
Wood demonstrated both the photo
interpretation and the data collection
systems used for the PDI. All were
briefed on the procedures developed
by Region 5 for their Timber Management
compartment exams. One of the objectives
of the trip was to determine areas of
compatibility between the two systems
so that compartment exams may be used
to provide disease and impact data.

Douglas-fir mortality on the
Salmon River District of the Klamath
National Forest was also visited by
MAG, Region 5 FI&DM, and Klamath
Supervisor's Office personnel.

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AIRCRAFT CALIBRATION TRAINING

Responding to a request from R-6 in
Portland, Oregon, MAG designed and
conducted a 2 day training session on
calibration and characterization of
aircraft for aerial applications on
May 11-12, 1976. Purpose of the
session was to train spray operation
officers for a 350,000 acre spruce
budworm control program in portions
of Washington and Oregon. Six students
attended the session. Instructors
included Tony Jasumback, MEDC, and
George Markin, PSW, as well as MAG
specialists. The course included
classroom work and field exercises
on determining flow rates and swath
widths of spray aircraft. The field
exercise was conducted at the air
strip of Medlock Dusters of Woodland,
California, with a Piper-Pawnee air¬
craft. This type of training is
available to Regions and Areas upon
request.

Tony Jasumback (MEDC) showing Don Lucht
(B-3) procedure for calibrating spray
aircraft.

Students examine spray aircraft during
field exercise in calibration and
characterization.

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,S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE