fields throughout the infested area. This natural phenomenon offered an unusual opportunity to delimit accurately infestations and to eliminate infestations. Until this time, regulatory activities to control the infestations required the use of all available resources. Following the freeze period, an intensified program was undertaken against the sweetpotato weevil with approved releases from the Department's contingency fund, supported by additional State funds. Results of these expanded activities have been encouraging and have made it possible to continue an effective level of activities with funds regularly available for the program.

The northern boundary of the sweetpotato weevil infestation has been clearly established the true extent of the problem determined-and substantial gains have been made in eliminating the pest. All infestations of the weevil have been eradicated from a commercial production area near Jackson, Miss., and 400 of the original 500 infestations in the commercial area of southern Georgia have been eliminated. During the past 2 years, infestations have been eliminated from East Feliciana and West Feliciana Parishes in Louisiana. This area includes the St. Francisville section where the largest sweetpotato market in the State is located. Only 39 infestations remain in Alabama-none in commercial areas and a substantial buffer zone has been established between the commercial sweetpotatoes grown in northeast Texas and the generally infested area to the south. Through vigorous control efforts sweetpotato weevil populations have been substantially reduced in the remainder of the infested area.

WHITE-FRINGED BEETLE

At the close of fiscal year 1963, all known infestations had been soil-treated in Kentucky and Virginia. The infestations in Arkansas had not been completed but treatment was continuing in the six known infested counties in the northeastern sections of the State.

Since July 1963, new finds of the white-fringed beetle have been discovered in the area of Norfolk, Va. Federal and State pest control officials are awaiting the completion of delimiting surveys before further treatments are undertaken in the Norfolk area.

During fiscal year 1963, 60,163 acres were soil-treated and more than 70,750 lots of nursery stock and other commodities were treated for regulatory purposes throughout the Southeastern States. About 10,000 acres of nurseries were soiltreated and over 1,000 acres were foliage-treated for regulatory purposes; 5.286 properties were inspected for commodity certification purposes. By the end of November 1963, more than 9,000 acres have been treated in nine States for regulatory purposes and to eliminate small outlying infestations. In the same period, approximately 2,500 acres in six States were treated with a foliage spray to reduce adult populations in support of regulatory activities.

The white-fringed beetle quarantine regulation has been revised to provide for dividing the regulated area into a suppressive and a generally infested area. This action will protect the eradication areas from becoming reinfested. The revision also requires the certification of the movement of used harvesting machinery and construction and maintenance equipment from the regulated area to prevent spread of the white-fringed beetle. It is significant that several infested States reported a general increase in white-fringed beetle populations during the year. Methods improvement efforts are being intensified to find methods of chemical control other than use of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides.

BURROWING NEMATODE

The new chemical barrier program, initiated in fiscal year 1962, continued on an effective basis during 1963. The program calls for establishment of chemical barriers around all infestations to prevent spread of the pest to uninfested groves. Owners are permitted to harvest citrus from affected groves until the crop is no longer profitable. Such features as this have gained the support of the industry and public acceptance of the program.

Chemical treatments are being applied in 192 separate areas on 136 miles of barrier. A total of 150 miles of barrier zone will be required to encircle 7.500 acres of citrus plantings known to be infested. The barrier zones are treated

4

ALL KNOWN INFESTED ACRES TREATED

(To June 30, 1963)

with ethylene dibromide at the rate of 25 gallons to the acre every 6 months. A herbicide is applied in granular form to keep the area free of weeds. Since. the beginning of the program, as a part of the overall effort to eradicate this destructive pest, trees have been removed and the land treated with nematocides on a total of 1,157 properties, with an aggregate of over 7,000 acres.

GOLDEN NEMATODE

The golden nematode eradication program on Long Island, N.Y., provides for the progressive treatment of all known infested land. Since the beginning of the program, about 16,000 acres have been found infested with golden nematode. More than 10,000 of these have been taken over for real estate development, leaving approximately 6,000 acres still available for agriculture. At the end of the 1963 survey season, April 1963, 3,346 acres of agricultural land were known to be infested. Through the fall of 1963, 489 acres were fumigated.

The survey schedule for Long Island calls for sampling of all potato fields at least once every 3 years. In addition to the work conducted in New York, limited surveys are conducted periodically in other potato-producing States. To date the infested area has been confined to two counties on Long Island.

SOYBEAN CYST NEMATODE

In 1963 soybean cyst nematode surveys were conducted in 22 of the major soybean-producing States. During fiscal year 1962, extensions of infested area amounting to 22,149 acres were found in the eight previously known infested States, but surveys in the remaining States gave negative results.

By the end of November 1963, more than 109,000 acres were known to be. infested in the eight infested States based on soil surveys. In some counties, the infestation has not been delimited, but it is estimated that there are more than 350,000 total acres infested.

Soybean cyst nematode damage was noted in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee during the current growing season. The degree of damage ranged from small spots in fields to entire fields. In cooperation with Federal and State research workers, field trials are underway in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee in a further evaluation of NC-55, a resistant black-seeded soybean. The bean has been planted on heavily infested plots to evaluate resistance and to determine the extent of reduction of the nematode,

population. The objective of these field trial studies is to see how this resistant seed does in heavily infested fields under different environmental conditions.

BARBERRY ERADICATION

The program to eradicate susceptible species of barberry throughout 19 Northern States continues to make good progress. There are now approximately 37,000 square miles remaining which will need one or more inspections to assure eradication. The more active programs are in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. During the year almost 7 million rust-susceptible barberry bushes were destroyed on more than 2,800 properties in 17 States. The barberry eradication program is supported by Federal Quarantine No. 38. This requires the annual inspection of nurseries and dealer establishments to make sure no rust-susceptible barberries are sold within or shipped into eradication States. During the year, more than 600 nurseries and dealers were inspected and qualified for certificates which permit the growing and sale of nonsusceptible stock.

HOJA BLANCA

The hoja blanca disease was found on three farms in Palm Beach County, Fla., in 1957. Subsequently a small infestation was located in Hancock County, Miss., in 1958. In 1959 the disease was found in 11 Louisiana parishes and the vector in 3 additional parishes. No further finds were made until the fall of 1962, when the vector was recorded again in 7 Louisiana parishes on 34 properties, with 5,335 acres involved. A total of 14,741 acres was treated in 1962 to eradicate the vector. In fiscal year 1963, neither the vector nor the disease was found in Louisiana.

Approximately 5 percent of the rice-growing area is surveyed annually. If either the vector or disease is found, inspection is increased to about 20 percent of the rice acreage around the infested area. In the States of Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, 201,812 acres were surveyed during 1962.

On June 18, 1963, three Sogata orizicola specimens were swept from rice plantings in Palm Beach County, Fla., and subsequently the disease was found in one location. This was the first time the disease had been found since 1959, and is in the same general area where the infection occurred in 1957. The vector infestation is under insecticide treatment in the current year.

PHONY PEACH AND PEACH MOSAIC ERADICATION

The low level of phony peach infection continued in the 1963 season with an incidence of 0.22 percent. Of the 6,577,622 peach trees inspected, only 14,169 infected trees were found. In 1962, the infection rate was 0.28 percent. The continuing decline of phony peach infection is attributed to the effectiveness of removal of infected trees and the destruction of wild plum, a carrier of the disease, together with an orchard spray schedule which affects the disease vector.

The peach mosaic infection rate had declined in 1962 to 0.03 percent from a high of 4.16 percent in 1935. In the 1963 season, 3,981,200 trees were inspected and 415 were found infected, an infection rate of only 0.01 percent. The number of infected trees found represents about one-third those found last year.

WITCH WEED ERADICATION

Progress in witchweed eradication in the Carolinas was demonstrated in fiscal year 1963 by the almost complete elimination of crop damage, the marked reduction in the infestation, and the prevention of spread to uninfested areas. The infestation pattern appears to have stabilized since it has changed very little after 5 years of survey and much of the increase in acreage was in the center of the known infested area. Only one new county was found infested during the year.

Effective State and Federal quarantine regulations have prevented long-distance spread of the pest. Keeping the infested fields under herbicide treatments has helped to prevent local spread. Surveys conducted in 22 States showed the pest to continue to be confined to the original area of infestation in North Carolina and South Carolina.

During the 1962 season an aggregate of 458,983 acres was treated with 2,4-D to prevent the production of the seed by the witchweed plants. By the end of the 1963 season, an aggregate of 460,882 were treated-357,647 acres in 24 North Carolina counties and 103,235 in 10 South Carolina counties.

Methods improvement activities included field tests using post-emergence herbicides as substitutes for 2,4-D, as well as preplanting and preemergence herbicides that can be used on corn, cotton, tobacco, and soybeans; systemics for use in corn and soil fumigation to destroy seed.

INSECT DETECTION AND SERVICE SURVEY OPERATIONS

The importance of the early detection of new insect pests was further emphasized in fiscal year 1963 when detailed surveys revealed that the cereal leaf beetle, first discovered in July of 1962, had spread over additional counties in the States of Indiana and Michigan, and had been found for the first time in Ohio. Continuous trapping for the Mediterraneon fruit fly in Florida again revealed an incipient infestation on June 17 near the International Airport in the city of Miami and again on August 28 in the same general area. The discovery was made in time to permit the prompt application of eradication treatments. Three insect species were reported for the first time in the United States in fiscal year 1963. None of them appears to be of economic importance. However, very little is known about two of them-the whiteflies, Dialeurodes kirkaldyi, first found in Key West, Fla., late last fall and Aleurotrachelus jelinekii found in California this spring.

The rice delphacid, vector for hoja blanca disease of rice, was found in Florida in June for the first time since 1957, as the result of continuing detection surveys. Two specimens of Mexican fruitfly were trapped in backyard citrus trees in Nogales, Ariz., pointing up the fact that the threat from this important citrus pest is ever present. The European chafer was found for the first time in June in Pennsylvania. Cooperatively financed survey entomologists are employed in 25 States. Three States-Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio came into the program this year. The cooperative Economic Insect Report, a nationwide compilation of rports, continues to be in demand and now reaches approximately 4,100 individuals each week.

AGRICULTURAL QUARANTINE AT PORTS-OF-ENTRY

Dr. CLARKSON. The plant and animal inspection and quarantine programs, as their names imply, are designed to prevent the introduction into the United States of diseases and pests of livestock and crops from foreign countries. There are any number of foreign diseases and pests that cause great damage in the countries of origin. If introduced, they would do even greater damage in the United States because they would be uninhibited by predators and diseases native to the country of origin.

We have a request before you for an additional amount of $230,000 for plant quarantine work and $175,000 for the animal quarantine work. These additional funds are necessary to provide the inspection force needed to meet the constantly increasing workload at ports of entry, both in terms of people entering this country from abroad as well as increased trade and traffic in all manner of goods.

PLANT QUARANTINE

One of the charts you have before you compares the increased workload for 1963 with 1954. The numbers of people entering this country increased from about 120 to 175 million. The numbers of items for which certificates had to be issued for export of agricultural goods increased from 15 million to over 70 million. The numbers of carriers of all kinds-planes, trucks, cars, and ships-increased from