On any given day, “chemistry magic” is happening inside the University of Maine’s Spruce Budworm Processing Lab. That’s how scientific research assistant Tucker Wile described the work he does.
Wile started there as an undergraduate and said the experience began to legitimize his confidence as a scientist. Now he is one of three full-time staff who supervise undergraduate students as they help process samples of tree branches sent in from timber companies, the Maine Forest Service and landowners. They work with chemicals, fume hoods, microscopes and lab equipment like separating flasks and petri dishes.
And their work is integral to the health of Maine’s forests.
A recent $600,000 federal award from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture is going to help the lab better detect, track and respond to spruce budworm outbreaks by funding new equipment and a renovation of the lab space. The award is the result of Congressionally Directed Spending secured by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Angus King in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Appropriations bill. The investment comes at a moment of growing regional concern — and growing recognition of the lab’s leadership.
Earlier this month, the Maine Forest Products Council honored lab director Angela Mech with its 2025 Abby Holman Public Service Award, which recognizes individuals who show exceptional dedication to Maine’s forest products industry and to good government.
As the organization noted, Mech’s leadership and research at UMaine’s Spruce Budworm Lab have been “invaluable in the early intervention effort to prevent a major outbreak in Maine,” directly informing management practices across millions of acres of forestland.
Mech, who opened the lab in 2021, said the new federal funds will help meet both current and future needs of the state’s heritage forest industry.
A report from the Maine Forest Products Council and Maine Department of Economic and Community Development found the industry contributed $8.3 billion to the state economy in 2024 and supported 29,000 jobs across all 16 counties.
Cyclical outbreaks
Spruce budworms, the most destructive native forest pest in North America, are always on the landscape. Periodically, they rapidly reproduce, causing population outbreaks, defoliating spruce and fir trees and creating major implications for Maine’s foresters, loggers and communities. Outbreaks kill trees, rendering the timber useless, increasing the risk of wildfire and causing a series of ecological effects.
Services from the lab now extend beyond Maine to New Hampshire, Vermont and even New York — states that, like Maine, deal with cyclical outbreaks of spruce budworm. The last outbreak to affect Maine occurred in the 1970s and 80s, spanned 7 million acres and cost the forest industry hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a spruce budworm fact sheet from UMaine and the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
Between 2023 and 2024, spruce budworm hotspots — areas that are nearing outbreak levels — jumped from 30,000 acres to 300,000. Data shows population outbreaks have been increasingly severe since the turn of the 20th century.
“The reason why the outbreaks got worse is actually because of us,” said Mech, associate professor of forest entomology. “Humans changed the landscape when we cut down the old growth forests.”
What came up was a higher number fir tree stems compared to what was removed. “Fir is really the budworm’s favorite tree,” Mech added. “It should have been named the fir budworm.”
Early intervention
Krysta West, executive director of the Maine Forest Products Council, said the forestry industry is transitioning to offer more diverse products, supported by wood product innovation research from UMaine. But they need healthy forests to support these new products, such as wood-based insulation, packaging and siding, as well as to continue support for Maine’s existing manufacturers.
“If left unchecked, the Spruce Budworm Taskforce estimates that an outbreak would have an annual impact of $794 million in lost contribution to Maine’s economy,” West said. “The entire Early Intervention Strategy, designed to prevent the next outbreak and keep our forests healthy, hinges on the monitoring services provided by UMaine’s Spruce Budworm Processing Lab.”
The Early Intervention Strategy aims to find population hotspots in their early stages and prevent damaging outbreaks. A network of monitoring sites across the Northeast region allow researchers to determine densities of spruce budworm and provide stakeholders with data to make informed management decisions.
“When we opened in 2021, we only had about 250 sites that we were processing in a year, and this year, we’re approaching probably 1,000, if not more,” Mech said. “We have to have more of everything.”
To encourage more samples that help track the spread of spruce budworm, additional funding acquired earlier this year allowed the lab to process 700 sites for free as part of its monitoring program so that more stakeholders, including small woodlot owners, could participate.
“We’re recognizing that everybody needs to participate if we’re really going to see what’s going on in the landscape,” Mech said.
In addition to the spruce budworm, the Mech Forest Entomology Lab researches other pests that affect forests in the Northeast, including browntail moth and hemlock woolly adelgid.
Contact: Ashley Yates; ashley.depew@maine.edu
