Silver flies...

We were in Tennessee this week with cooperators from Vermont releasing these beauties onto heavily adelgid-infested eastern hemlock trees. 

A silver fly (Leucopis spp.) adult as seen under the microscope.

A heavily infested hemlock branch with 2 generations of adelgid.

Silver flies are native to the Western U.S. and are a predator of hemlock adelgids in those forests.  I was fortunate to be part of the team that released the very first silver flies in the eastern U.S. at this very same site last year.  We had promising results from that experiment and are hoping for more of the same this year.  

Counting adelgid along stem sections on hemlock branches.

Hemlock branches are labeled and adelgids are counted.

Releasing silver fly adults into a sleeve cage.

I will return in about one month to collect our first set of branches and we will see if the flies were able to feed and successfully reproduce.  Our cooperators from Vermont will set up another set of replicates in New York later this month.  We are working the western and northern edges of the hemlock woolly adelgid infestation.