NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTIC Radio)—The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) has announced that an invasive pest known as the box tree moth has been found at a retail facility in Connecticut.
The box tree moth was detected on boxwood imported from Ontario, Canada at a single retail nursery in Connecticut, State Entomologist Dr. Kirby Stafford with CAES said.
In late May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of box tree moth at the facility in Connecticut as well as three facilities in Michigan and one facility in South Carolina.
According to APHIS officials, a nursery in Ontario shipped boxwood to 25 retail facilities across six states, include the states with confirmed infestations.
On May 26, APHIS issued a federal order to stop the importation of host plants from Canada, including boxwood, holly and Euonymus.
Efforts to eradicate the infested plants are being done at the local level, Stafford said.
"Those plants will be isolated and disposed of. That's the course of action that we took here and that's what's being done in other states as well as tracking these plants down and quarantining them," he said.
The plants may receive treatment for the infestation or they may be destroyed, Stafford explained.
Though the box tree moth is native to East Asia, it has become a serious invasive pest in Europe, CAES officials said. In 2018, the pest was found in Canada.
Heavy infestations of the caterpillars can defoliate host plants and, when the leaves are gone, larvae consume the bark which can lead to the plant being killed, CAES officials said.
Efforts to destroy the infested plants, Stafford said, are being done to prevent the box tree moth from being established in the U.S.
People that have bought a boxwood plant in the last few months should inspect it for signs of the box tree month, Stafford warned.
"The caterpillars themselves can be actually fairly cryptic. Their color blends in really well into the boxwood, so it's actually easier to detect them if you see signs of their silvery webbing on the affected plants," Stafford said.
Other box tree moth symptoms include silk threads and green-black frass on the plant.
Any findings can be reported to the CAES through the email CAES.StateEntomologist@ct.gov. Stafford asks that emails include information about the findings, including the location and a photograph.