Grove on emerald ash borer research project using plane-mounted sensors to spot infestations
The beetle, which is native to Asia, first infested the region in 2003 via a tree nursery shipment from Michigan, leading to widespread infestation reports in Charles, Howard, Anne Arundel, Washington and Garrett counties. Past efforts to eradicate the insect in Prince George’s County have led to the destruction of 27 square miles of trees, according to Gazette records.
Under the roughly $100,000 pilot program paid for jointly by NASA and the USDA, a NASA-owned Cessna plane loaded with sensitive scanners flew a couple of days in late June over Bowie, the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center near Laurel, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center near Edgewater and surrounding areas, said J. Morgan Grove, a USDA research scientist working on the project.
