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Post by brownrexx on Sept 12, 2019 17:37:06 GMT -5
There is a new invasive pest in town in my area. It is called the Spotted Lantern Fly. It is actually quite pretty but can cause significant damage to agriculture in PA. We kill them whenever we see them and tonight I killed 2 on the deck and I saw 2 dead ones in a spider web but the spider was dead too so I am wondering if they are toxic to spiders. I sure hope not. Our son told us today that he has seen 200 of them at his house this week. He lives about 10 miles away from us. I live in Lancaster County which is one of the quarantined counties. www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/PlantIndustry/Entomology/spotted_lanternfly/SpottedLanternflyAlert/Pages/default.aspx
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Post by bestofour on Sept 12, 2019 18:45:58 GMT -5
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2019 14:37:12 GMT -5
Thank you for posting that and the link, very important to know the bad pests.
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Post by brownrexx on Sept 14, 2019 15:03:57 GMT -5
Penn State is working on some solutions to wipe them out before they spread across the country but who knows how successful that will be. They are attracted to an invasive tree from Asia called the Tree of Heaven. This tree can be treated with systemic insecticide and they will die when they eat it and they are also working on some other things.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Sept 14, 2019 16:12:33 GMT -5
brownrexx, my county is one of the 8 in NJ where the SLF has been found, though I have found none yet, KOW. I keep looking for them, however.
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Post by brownrexx on Sept 14, 2019 16:52:45 GMT -5
pepperhead212 that is bad news. I did not realize that they had been seen outside of PA. I did not see any at home last year but this year I am seeing them almost daily.
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Post by ahntjudy on Sept 15, 2019 14:11:23 GMT -5
This morning, there was one sitting on the roof of my car... I went to swat it but it flew off...They are really quick...I chased it down in the driveway but to no avail...It disappeared in the mulch... Oddly enough, right after that, I ran an errand about 4 miles away...When I went to get back in the car, one flew up and landed on my shirt... That was startling...That one, too, got away from a swat...Anyone watching me must have thought I was crazy, trying to stomp on 'something' in the parking lot!... ... Not sure if it was from that town, or had just hitched a ride somewhere in/on the car...
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Post by brownrexx on Sept 15, 2019 14:54:24 GMT -5
Ugh, we just got home from being at our cabin in Western PA all weekend and hubby called me to the small deck beside our sunroom. There were at least a dozen spotted lanternflies all over the railing and the siding to the house. As we sat in the sunroom we could hear them landing on the screens. These bugs are not small.
I keep going out and killing them with a fly swatter and have killed about 30 of them since we got home. Yuk. I have never seen so many. It's gross.
They are actually more of a leaf hopper than a fly and they jump more than fly but a fly swatter does the trick if you are fast.
This is the time they will be laying eggs so I am killing as many as I see and I am keeping the flyswatter on the deck.
I did report the sighting to Penn State. They are keeping track of sightings and ask people to notify them when they see them. This will also add my name to their list of people whom they send updates about this problem to.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Sept 15, 2019 15:37:04 GMT -5
Has anyone heard of them being attracted to any colors, so some sticky tape would trap them? I have some yellow out there, and haven't seen any on the strips, but like I said, I haven't seen any, so far. I also have some blue and orange tape, though I haven't put that out, since I have not had the bugs those help trap, at least this year. I have a bright orange container out there, but haven't seen anything attracted to it, but a yellow container of the same type was covered with leaf hoppers one evening. That's when I brushed some fresh tanglefoot on the yellow tapes - something I put out there in late July, to see if pepper maggot flies are gone.
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Post by brownrexx on Sept 15, 2019 16:58:37 GMT -5
According to Penn State you can wrap sticky tape around tree trunks to capture them as they climb the trees. Apparently they will do a lot of damage to fruit trees. They did not indicate a color preference.
There must have been a wave of them coming through earlier when I killed about 30 of them on my deck. They just kept coming but now I am not seeing any.
I threw one in a spider web and he came over and wrapped it right up.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Sept 16, 2019 15:53:19 GMT -5
I had to share this after seeing it on the news. I knew it had to be on YouTube!
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Post by brownrexx on Sept 16, 2019 18:47:19 GMT -5
Pretty good song actually.
I only killed 2 on the deck this afternoon but saw 2 others wrapped up in spider webs so at least something is eating them.
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 10, 2019 19:55:47 GMT -5
I was horseback riding in the woods today and my trainer pointed out a couple of her trees with huge concentrations of Spotted Lantern Flies so when I got home, hubby and I checked our maple trees and discovered that our large silver Maple tree trunk was covered with hundreds of them and they were laying eggs! We never even knew that they were there. I called Penn State and reported the sighting and asked how to kill them. I am not sticking to my organic standards about this. They are not on our food source and it's an invasion! Sevin and Home Defense are recommended and I bought the Home Defense and mixed it up in a sprayer. We sprayed the tree this afternoon and when I checked it later, the insecticide seems to have worked and there were dead ones all over the place. We have several other maple trees in our border of trees at the edge of our lot and found them on all of the maple trees. We will spray them tomorrow. I have no illusions that we can do anything to stop their spread but at least we can stop this generation from laying eggs and can protect our trees. The trees that I saw in the woods this morning had clusters of the lantern flies on them and the trees were weeping sap where they were. They are super horrible. Populations have now been established in PA, MD, DE and Northern VA. Research is being conducted on a fungus that can infect them similar to the one that finally controlled the Gypsy Moth but at this point nothing is available except insecticides. I stomp or use a fly swatter on all of the ones I see around the house and garage but when a tree has thousands crawling up and down the trunk, using a fly swatter is a joke. I did not take a picture so here is one from the internet to show you how bad they are. This photo shows the trunk of a tree and mine looked just like this. upload
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Post by bestofour on Oct 11, 2019 7:43:07 GMT -5
Glad you found out before it was too late.
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Post by ahntjudy on Oct 11, 2019 20:42:14 GMT -5
Haven't seen any more here since a couple of them a few weeks ago... I check my Japanese Maple and have seen none so far on it...checking elsewhere too... I watched an informative video of what the eggs look like in different stages...good info...
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Next day edit... Spoke too soon...saw one fly onto the driveway... It met demise by flip-flop...Sorry, bug...
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 14, 2019 14:50:46 GMT -5
Here is some sad and sobering news.
I received an e-mail from the PA Dept of Ag today asking for a sample of our honey. We do not keep bees anymore but here is the reason for the request.
Those horrible Spotted Lanternflys secrete a honeydew like substance which attracts bees. I saw this for myself on our infested maple tree but they seemed to be Yellow Jackets and I DO know the difference.
However they say that honeybees are also attracted and there have been reports of honey contaminated with spotted Lanternfly honeydew and that it affects the taste.
Worse than that, when homeowners apply a soil drench to be absorbed systemically by the trees, the Lanternflys will eat it as they suck the tree sap and die but if honeybees eat the poisoned Lanternfly's honeydew before they die, the bees honey will not only be contaminated with Lanternfly honeydew but it may also contain traces of the poison.
What a horrible scenario. I am actually glad now that we gave up beekeeping 2 years ago.
This is really sad and will not only be bad for people who eat honey but it may be a death knell for the poor honeybees who already have enough trouble.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 14, 2019 15:00:39 GMT -5
That is terrible, brownrexx! Fortunately, I still have yet to see any (KOW), but I'm looking closely, esp. on maples around here.
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Post by ahntjudy on Oct 15, 2019 7:42:39 GMT -5
Wow brownrexx...That is bad news...The poor bees...And all they are trying to do is their job...
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 15, 2019 7:53:50 GMT -5
I know it's awful pepperhead212 , ahntjudy , I hope that the Dept of Ag reports their results back to me. I am interested even if we no longer have honeybee hives. They say that this Spotted Lanternfly can have devastating effects on grape crops and now honey is effected too. They make a big deal about checking for egg masses on vehicles and trailers leaving the quarantined counties but do we really think that EVERYONE will be conscientious? Sadly, I am sure they will be spreading across PA. Just think of all of the wooded areas that must already be infected. PA State has a big grant to try to control this problem and I know that they are working with the fungus that was used to control the Gypsy Moth. I hope that they come up with something soon before homeowners poison the entire state. I did spray the trunks of my maple trees and now there are hundreds of Lanternflys dead at the base of the trees. I hated doing that but they were laying eggs so at least I prevented a couple of million eggs from being laid. Each egg mass may contain 100 eggs and I saw dozens of them high up in the tree where I can't possibly reach. That was what convinced me to spray.
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lisaann
Junior Member
Posts: 76
Joined: June 2016
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Post by lisaann on Oct 20, 2019 10:34:10 GMT -5
brownrexx, Yes this is terrible. I had no idea you stopped having bees. Why did you stop? Around here Maples are on a decline in the neighborhood and people are having them cut down. Storm damage leading cause here. But I have been watching for that lantern fly. Waving at you.
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 20, 2019 12:15:25 GMT -5
lisaann, Our bees died in the spring about 2 years ago and we decided not to start them again because too many people are spraying too many pesticides on their lawns and other places and it is too hard on the bees. Now with this lanternfly infestation, I am glad that we no longer have them. Lanternflys prefer the Tree of Heaven but Maple is their second favorite. If they can't find Maples, they will go to other trees. They are a BAD problem.
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Post by ahntjudy on Oct 25, 2019 15:30:46 GMT -5
I haven't seen any lately brownrexx... Are you still having issues with them?...
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 26, 2019 9:08:37 GMT -5
ahntjudy, I just checked yesterday and I only saw about 6 on my maple tree that had so many of them before I sprayed. I hated spraying but obviously it keeps on killing which is good in this case although I feel terrible for the good bugs that my spraying is killing. I didn't do this but many people are using the systemic soil drench on their trees. I shudder to think how much poison is being poured onto the soil. I would not collect leaves from strangers anymore or use the municipal free compost for this reason. It's sad and I sure hope that Penn State discovers some biological control or a trap before Spring when they become active again. I heard that these insects are really impacting agriculture in PA. They apparently love grape vines.
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Post by ahntjudy on Oct 26, 2019 10:37:37 GMT -5
I know...It's really awful...Have you seen any eggs?...
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 26, 2019 13:49:10 GMT -5
Have you seen any eggs?... Yes, lots of them. The day i discovered the infestation on our big Maple tree we could see egg masses all over the place way up in the tree. We can't reach them so in the spring when they hatch we will put a sticky band around the trunk of the tree to capture the nymphs as they come down the tree.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jul 26, 2020 16:08:48 GMT -5
It's here! I was just out to take some photos of (and look for more) bitter melons, and I saw these for the first time! No way of mistaking these, for sure. I have seen them in the news, in towns west of Philadelphia, but I am in the range on one map I found online. Now I have to make some of those traps I have seen those people making on those news stories. Oh no... that thing is here! The spotted lanternfly. 7-27 by pepperhead212, on Flickr The first one I saw was on the bitter melon, which is covered with Surround, so that does not bother them at all! And from what I read, these things are actually living in trees, and what I'm seeing probably fell off that tree hanging over my property! They want to climb back up, which is why all the traps I see go around tree trunks. I'll come up with something...
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Post by brownrexx on Jul 26, 2020 16:32:56 GMT -5
Oh NO. I knew that you would probably get them someday but this is bad news. I have seen a couple in my garden too and they can really hop if you try to smash them. apparently they really devour grape vines but I don't know what other garden crops that they may bother. The adults will be everywhere in a few weeks. Those sticky traps are terrible things. They do trap the nymphs as they travel on the tree trunk but they also trap birds, especially woodpeckers and wrens as well as bats. Some people use them but put a layer of hardware cloth over the sticky part to keep the birds off. It is too late to use the sticky traps now anyway because the immature bugs are not traveling up and down the trunks now. They will soon be adults and I copied plans from the PA State website to make a trap for the adults which will not harm birds or bats. The stage that you showed is the last instar before they become adults. I will show a picture of the trap as soon as I get one made. We have a large silver maple that they just covered last year. They really like Maple trees but if you don't have any of those you might not be too bothered by them. Here is the link for the trap I am planning on trying. extension.psu.edu/how-to-build-a-new-style-spotted-lanternfly-circle-trap
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jul 26, 2020 20:42:53 GMT -5
brownrexx I have no trees in my yard, but that sycamore tree next door might be where they are - just some dropping out of it. No maples - across the street is the closest.
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Post by brownrexx on Jul 27, 2020 7:31:39 GMT -5
pepperhead212, if you have no trees, then maybe you won't be bothered by them too much. Last year when I first started seeing them, I would find adults on my deck and I killed them with a fly swatter. Every time I went outside I would kill 6 or 8 of them and didn't know where they were coming from but THEN I looked at the trunk of our big, mature Silver Maple which is at least 250 feet away and saw hundreds of them on the tree! It was appalling. They can fly short distances but they mostly hop far and fast. You can look at your neighbor's tree trunk in a few weeks to see if they are there. They really blend in and you can hardly notice them until you get close. They are horrible things.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jul 27, 2020 23:20:03 GMT -5
From what I've read, the stuff we grow in gardens isn't at much danger - it's mostly trees. Still, I'll watch, and I've reported it to some NJ org place. Didn't see any today.
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