HWA Workshop and Volunteer Training in Naples, Dec. 3, 10-noon

UPCOMING EVENTS

HWA Workshop and Volunteer Training
Saturday, December 3rd 10 am- noon
Naples Village Hall 

Join CLWA and  representatives fom the New York State Hemlock Initiative for a HWA workshop for landowners. Presentation will be followed by a walk in Tannery Creek for further idenitifaction techniques and volunteer training session.

Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is a very small aphid-like insect that can kill hemlock trees within 4-12 years. Hemlock trees are found in glens and gorges throughout the Finger Lakes, and are a popular landscape tree. Hemlock trees provide shelter for wildlife year-round, stabilize steep slopes, and cool streams and lakes which helps maintain water quality and support local fisheries. HWA has been confirmed across the Finger Lakes region in recent years, and poses a threat to all hemlock trees in the region. Citizens can help by learning how to identify HWA and report possible infestations.

The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is a well known pest in Georgia, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. It has decimated forests of hemlocks in National Parks and Forests of those states.  Now it has appeared in New York, with the same results. Many property owners in the western Finger Lakes recently received a brochure and letter from CLWA on the problem.

A workshop for property owners who have Eastern hemlocks growing on their properties is scheduled for Saturday, December 3, 2016 at the Naples Village Hall, 108 South Main Street (Rte. 21), Naples from 10 am until noon.

The workshop, sponsored by the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association and presented by researchers from Cornell University’s New York State Hemlock Initiative, will address options property owners may use to protect their hemlocks.  For particularly valuable trees, chemical treatments by licensed professionals will provide up to seven years of safety. Biocontrols (beetles which eat Hemlock woolly adelgid) are also under development and have been recently introduced to Parrish (Conklin) Gully in Hi Tor. CLWA understands the need for some use of chemicals but favors the introduction of biocontrols as soon as practical and possible for stands of hemlocks, such those which grow in the gullies around Canandaigua Lake.

Eastern hemlocks occupy a unique position in the Finger Lakes forests. Because they are so shade tolerant, they grow in the shady gullies where other trees can’t. Their cover and root systems help to reduce both erosion and the temperature for the streams running to Canandaigua Lake. Hemlocks are the “cornerstone” of a unique ecological community of plants, such as ferns and mosses, and animals, such as salamanders and brook trout that are increasingly rare in urbanized areas. CLWA is very concerned about the potential loss of hemlocks in the lake’s gullies that could lead to increased erosion and nutrient losses.

Cornell researchers will share methods for the recognition and judging the severity of infestations. Workshop participants will also learn how to report the presence of adelgids to the NYS Hemlock Initiative and NYS DEC through the use of ImapInvasives. Samples of the adelgid will be available and a woods walk may happen, depending on conditions.

The workshop is free, but because of limited space, we ask that those who wish to attend RSVP to (585) 394-5030 or info@canandaigualakeassoc.org.

HWA Workshop for Landowners 

When: Saturday, December 3rd 2016 10:00 am – noon

Where: Naples Village Hall (108 South Main Street, Naples NY)

RSVP: (585) 394-5030 or info@cananadaigualakeassoc.org