GRASS-ROOTS SAGES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100040047-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: May 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/08 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100040047-8
ARTICLE Air~-.4~a0
ON PAGE ..1L'L_
WASHINGTON POST
12 May 1986
Metrapvlitnn Life
Grass-Roots Sages
FILE ONLY
~-ateriing. One cannot just drown a tree. Water must
~e applied correctly, weekly.
. Collectively, their knowledge is strong. They
w about leaf hoppers and European corn borers,
~~ialea petal blight and cabbage loopers.
Kimsey has taken horticulture courses at the
~lorthern Virginia Community College. At home, he
has a vegetable gazden-"1,000 square feet planted
is oae thing or another."
For Vasur, working at the clinic is a way of "get-
ting back to plants" after taking time out to raise
three chikhtin. Lake McKinney, she also has had ex-
tension service training.
Last summer, more than 4,000 people showed up
at Fairfax's neighborhood clinics with Baggies of
garden sal, dead leaves wrapped in tinfoil, envel-
opes of grass clippings.
"A lot of diseases are very tough to identify,"
McKinney said.
"Viruses," Vasur interjected.
"Oh, yes-viruses are very, VERY hard," McI{in-
ney agreed.
Problems that can't immediately be diagnosed are
sent to the main extension service laboratory,
where people like Mary Bean can look at a spray of
white-blotched hemlock and say; '"c'hat's woolly
aphid."
Questions come and go with gardening cycles.
Right now, people are interested in pine sawflies
and clover mites. "Blossom end rot-we'll be get-
ting slot of that soon," Bean said.
Regardless of the season, everyone is interested
in gypsy moths, including Jan Smith. She presents
the symptoms-ugly caterpillars, big tents spun of
white, chewed leaves. "Ugh," she says. "Awful."
McKinney peers at her through black-rimmed
glasses. He reaches under a pile of books for "In-
sects That Feed On Trees and Shrubs," and flips im-
mediately to Plate 62.
"The Eastern Tent Caterpillar," he says. "Yes, I
think you're seeing the Eastern Tent Caterpillar."
By Barbara Carton
Washington Pat Staff Writer
an Smith a 2& ear-old intelli ence officer, thinks the roblem
c mot s a s as sto t o i r-
h d l nt a at a oca ary to m out.
Smith wears a ec~y~ouse'F-shirt an sari aTShe lives in a
Falls Church town house development. "The moths got in my tree,
and I only have one tree," she says. "Just that one."
It happened last summer-big, gauzy nests. "You could see the
caterpillars crawling around inside. It was awful. It was just so aw-
fuL" Smith does. not want it to happep--this year.
The library she has come to is Fairfax County's Tysons Pimmit
Regional, on Rte. 7. Staffing the "Neighborhood Plant Clinic" table
aze two vohinteers: Lenna~ Vasur, 44, a landscape architect, and Jce
McKinney, 62, a retired Air Force pivot.
Between them, they have a Swiss Army knife (for scraping and
probing plant samples), two magnifying glasses (for examining plant
spores and "counting legs'? and reference books, including: "Iden-
tifying The Diseases of Vegetables," "Woody Ornamentals," and the
fifth edition of "Diseases & Pests of Ornamental Plants."
McKinney also has brought several live specimens-a jar of as-
' pazagus beetles captured in his. iVicLean garden, and afresh-picked
asparagus stalk covered with beetle eggs.
This is the 10th year the Fairfax County branch of the Virginia
Cooperative Extension Service, in cooperation with other groups,
has offered free neighborhood plant clinics.
There are 16 clinics scattered throughout the county, and they
are staffed by 150 volunteers. It is the first year a clinic has been
offered at Tysons Pimmit.
Before Smith came along with her gypsy moth question, McKin-
ney and Vasur answered several others, including one from a wo-
man who stopped to ask about an ailing birch.
"It has three little dead leaves at the bottom," she said. "Should I
just be patient with it, or what?
"I'm praying over it," she added. "I'm praying, and my husband
keeps saying, 'It's dead, it's dead, it's dead.' "
Her problem, McKinney and Vasur determined, was improper
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/08 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100040047-8