We welcome you to join us at our Fiscal Year 2026 Annual Meeting with a presentation by Dr. Olga Kostromystska!
Food and snacks will be provided free of charge.
Presentation: Spotted Lanternflies in Massachusetts
Duration: ~ 0.5 hour business meeting & ~1.5 hour presentation with Dr. Olga Kostromystska
Program Type: In-person
Cost: Free, Registration Preferred
Maximum Number of Participants: 60
Presentation Speaker: Dr. Olga Kostromytska
Donations are welcome!
We will start with a short business meeting. At this meeting, we will be voting on candidates for the Board of Supervisors for Middlesex Conservation District. Anyone who is a land user in Middlesex County is invited to vote. The agenda can be found here.
Presentation Description:
The invasive spotted lanternfly (SLF) continues to spread in the Northeast. In this presentation, we will dive into the latest scientific updates on spotted lanternfly biology, their shifting distribution map, and their preferred host plants. This talk will explore the natural predator that might be helping us fight back, and available trapping and monitoring methods. Finally, because the lanternfly relies heavily on the invasive Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), you will learn exactly how to distinguish this host plant from vital native look-alikes like black walnut, sumac, hickory, and elm, alongside the best, research-backed strategies for managing this invasive species.
Dr. Olga Kostromytska’s Bio:
Extension Assistant Professor Olga Kostromytska received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Entomology from the University of Florida, specializing in turf entomology. Since 2010, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Rutgers University, focusing on biology and management of annual bluegrass weevil, a destructive pest on golf courses. Some of the projects she worked on were host plant resistance, insecticide resistance, biocontrol options, chemical ecology and reproductive diapause of annual bluegrass weevil. Other research interests include biology and management of white grubs, mole crickets, billbugs, chinchbugs, cutworms. She joined University of Massachusetts in September 2018, as an Extension faculty member. Her research program is centered on gaining better understanding of biology and ecology of turfgrass insect pests, developing sustainable management strategies with reduced insecticide applications, and investigating insecticide resistance mechanisms and developing resistance mitigation programs.