Spotted lanternfly nymphs are crawling around right now on trees, vines and other vegetation in the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
Maybe you’ve tried tips on controlling the lanternfly, like applying sticky bands around backyard trees to catch the little crawlers before they can grow and inflict their damage.
The bands work to catch the nymphs, but they also catch beneficial insects and even birds and other creatures. The advice now for this method is to build a raised guard of wire or screening around the band.
Or, experts say, those fed up with the non-native, invasive species’ march across the Northeast can try a new kind of trap patterned off traps designed to catch pecan weevils.
Pecan weevils are smaller than the nymphal or instar stages of the lanternfly’s life cycle but they crawl up the trunks of trees just the same, according to researchers at the PennState Extension. One retailer of commercially available traps for the weevils says they are helpful in monitoring their emergence from the ground, to better time insecticide applications.
To catch them as they crawl, PennState Extension have come up with detailed instructions available at extension.psu.edu on how to build your own trap similar to that used for pecan weevils but better designed for the spotted lanternfly. The materials include plastic milk jugs, duct tape, screen wire, twine, hot glue and gallon-sized food-storage bags.
This circle trap design has been found to be safe and effective at catching the spotted lanternfly, including in its nymphal and adult stages.Commonwealth Media Services (PAcast)
The traps will probably work best to catch nymphs in spring and early summer, according to the extension educators, and now is not too late to give them a try.
“Yes, now is the time to put up circle traps to collect/kill nymphs,” Horticulture Extension Educator Amy Korman told lehighvalleylive.com. “These traps will catch adults, too.”
Korman and Senior Extension Educator Emelie Swackhamer wrote the DIY instructions for building the traps.
“I have caught more nymphs than adults in my circle traps. However, some people report capturing a lot of adults, so it is fine to keep the traps up through the whole season,” Swackhamer said by email. “They should be taken down at the end of the season so they don’t turn into trash or girdle the tree years later.”
Early observations of the spotted lanternfly suggest populations are rebounding after lower levels last year, the educators said. Swackhamer said she believes lanternfly populations will continue to be variable.
Population development is a function of the insect biology, the environment and natural enemy activity (predators and parasites), Korman said. On the second and third points, she noted last year saw some “really wild” weather across the Lehigh Valley. Wet weather can lead to more activity by naturally occurring fungi that can kill the lanternfly. Natural enemies, meanwhile, are “important but probably not the cause of the reduced numbers we saw last year in various regions,” Korman said.
On the biology front, it’s possible the lanternfly’s presence is cyclical like that of the spongy moth (the new name for the gypsy moth) whose life cycle includes voracious leaf-munching caterpillars, Korman said.
“As the populations of caterpillars get larger each year, they are defoliating more and more,” she wrote by email. “Finally, they reach a point where there are not enough resources (food) to support the size of the population and that is why it declines and population growth starts over (as the trees recover). Do we have evidence of those kinds of limiting factors for the lanternfly — not yet.”
Other control measures include scraping off egg masses over winter and good-old-fashioned squishing of the nymphal and adult stages.
The spotted lanternfly is seen in its early nymphal or instar stages, which are found in late spring and early summer.N.J. Department of Agriculture
Research funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture and private industry has advanced Pennsylvania’s understanding of the spotted lanternfly and how to safely control it in our climate and habitat, staff officials said earlier this year. To learn how to recognize the insect and its eggs, how to separate common myths from facts and how to safely control it on your property, visit Penn State Extension’s website, extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly.
The New Jersey Department of Agriculture encourages residents and businesses to go to badbug.nj.gov for information on how to fight the spotted lanternfly.
“There are no easy answers when it comes to the spotted lanternfly, and we understand that’s hard for people to hear,” stated Rick Roush, dean of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, during a rollout of the DIY circle trap in April. “Good research takes time — and funding — but we are making discoveries every day and are sharing those findings with the public and key stakeholders.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.
Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.