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As long as the weather cooperates, approximately 117 acres on Brush and Gap mountains is expected to be aerially sprayed with BTK pesticide to exterminate gypsy moths starting Thursday, as part of Montgomery County's participation in the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' 2008 suppression program.

An additional 137 acres on Poor Mountain is scheduled to be sprayed with Dimilin pesticide next week, according to Montgomery County gypsy moth coordinator Charles Putnam.

"Poor Mountain is going to be at least a week later because the leaves have not developed up there, and we need enough leaf cover to catch the spray as it comes down," Putnam said.

For the spraying be effective, wind speeds must be less than 10 mph and the temperature between 35 and 75 degrees, said Virginia Cooperative Extension agent Barry Robinson.

The optimum rain-free time after spraying occurs is four hours for BTK and one hour for Dimilin, he added.

BTK is a biological insecticide used in the organic food industry to control caterpillars, and Dimilin is a chemical insecticide that is often more effective than BTK.

Extension agents on site Thursday morning will monitor the weather and decide whether to proceed. If the weather is acceptable, a plane releasing droplets of pesticide will fly several hundred feet above the spray sites, Robinson said.

Because both areas are fairly remote and uninhabited, Putnam isn't advising that residents take safety precautions.

"It's up to the individuals and their comfort level," he said. "There's not really considered to be much expectation of any problems at all. These products have been used for decades to do this."

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors voted to fund the project in January, with the understanding that the county wouldn't likely receive state funding.

The county was given a low priority for funding, in the program's fifth-tier "Type E" category, because the spray areas are so sparsely inhabited.

As expected, the county will fully fund treatments this month, using $8,700 of general fund money, spokeswoman Ruth Richey said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is expected to aerially spray 242 acres in Montgomery County's Boley Field and Brush Mountain areas today with nuclear polyhedrosis virus, a pesticide that targets the gypsy moth species.

On Thursday, the service is expected to spray 1,089 acres in and adjacent to the Cascades Recreation Area in Giles County with BTK pesticide.