Emerging forest pests & diseases in North Carolina - Brown bag at Bent Creek EF

You must register to attend. Participation is limited to 50 people. The event will be held in person in Asheville, North Carolina. The event is part of a new series of free in-person lunch talks at Bent Creek Experimental Forest. 

Join us to hear Jacob Betzen discuss new and emerging pests and diseases threatening our forest in North Carolina. It will briefly introduce a range of pests and diseases that have recently become established in North Carolina or are expected to spread into the state soon. Diseases include laurel wilt (spread by the redbay ambrosia beetle), thousand cankers disease (spread by the walnut twig beetle), dogwood anthracnose, white pine decline, and oak decline. Emerging pests include elm zigzag sawflies, Asian longhorned beetles, emerald ash borers, hemlock woolly adelgids, spongy moths, and spotted lanternflies. Invasive plants and abiotic threats such as saltwater intrusion and drought will also be discussed. 

Betzen earned his undergraduate degree in forestry from Colorado State University, and his master’s degree from the University of Washington. He has worked with the B4Warmed climate research project in Minnesota, the Great Basin Institute’s conservation corps and native seed collection in Nevada and completed a master’s degree at the University of Washington, studying bigleaf maple decline. After graduating, he worked for the Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis in Nevada and Utah, and Forest Health Protection in Idaho as an aerial observer. In 2023 he moved to North Carolina and began his current position as a forest entomologist with the Forest Health Protection office in Asheville NC. He lives with his wife and three-year-old son in Morganton, NC.  

Visit the registration page.