Invasive Species Resources

For the last seven decades, Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) has been leading the fight against nematodes—invasive, microscopic worms that can destroy seasons' worth of crops. However, researchers had been working in a facility that lacked the infrastructure to keep pace with their innovative work. On August 1, 2019, thanks to a $1.2 million grant from New York State and another $400,000 in federal funding, CALS cut the ribbon on the new Golden Nematode Quarantine Facility, located on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, NY. The facility is the only research program in North America with expertise in biology, resistance breeding and management of potato-cyst nematodes. At the lab, Cornell scientists work in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture Research Service (ARS).

Emerald ash borer was first confirmed in New York in June 2009 near Randolph, in western Cattaraugus County. The rapid spread of the beetle through North America is most likely due to the transport of infested firewood, ash nursery stock, unprocessed ash logs, and other ash products. In an effort to slow the continued spread of EAB, both Federal and New York State agencies have instituted quarantines of infested areas to regulate the transport of ash products.