This week's AccuWeather Agricultural Advantage looks at the spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect that feeds on grapevines and other crops, threatening vineyards and farms across the eastern United States.
00:00This week's AccuWeather Agricultural Advantage looks at the spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect that feeds on grapevines and other crops, threatening vineyards and farms across the east.
00:17Joining us is Brian Walsh, spotted lanternfly researcher with Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
00:24And good morning, Brian. We want to know, what is the spotted lanternfly? Why do we talk about it? Why is it so dangerous to crops?
00:32Good morning. Thanks for having me.
00:33So the spotted lanternfly is a plant hopper that is native to eastern Asia that was accidentally introduced about 15 years ago into Pennsylvania.
00:42And it's become a problematic invasive species for us.
00:45It really likes to go after grapes, but it will feed on just about anything except the conifer.
00:51And it makes it a very difficult pest to try and combat.
00:55It also moves around a lot throughout the season.
00:58And it's wreaking havoc in our vineyards.
01:04And how is the spotted lanternfly damaging grapes and cutting harvest specifically?
01:11Yeah, it's interesting.
01:12It doesn't actually hurt the grapes themselves, but it feeds on the sap of the vines.
01:17And by doing that, it takes a lot of the nutrients out of the plants, which then can reduce yields.
01:22And it really can impact the vines' ability to overwinter because they don't have the stored nutrients that they need to get through to the next season.
01:30And so if they're left unchecked, the heavy feeding can actually kill the vines in just a season or two.
01:37So it's problematic that way, and it feeds the same way on a lot of other plants.
01:42It's just that grapes have seemed to be the most impacted, the most severely impacted.
01:47But it will feed on trees, and we know that they're doing damage when they feed.
01:51And that adds stressors to the other plants that it feeds on.
01:55So when you combine that with something like a drought or extended wet periods that can stress the plants,
02:03those stressors can add up and become problematic for them.
02:07Is there anything that anyone can do, especially the growers of vines, for example?
02:12Yeah, the growers have a lot of tools in their toolboxes.
02:15They, unfortunately, rely a lot more on pesticides to keep them under control.
02:21And that means increased pesticide application.
02:24And the thing that people can do, just the general public,
02:28is to not accidentally spread it further and faster than it is spreading.
02:32The lanternfly is a remarkably adapted hitchhiker.
02:36It can hitchhike along on any kind of human conveyance.
02:40They have the ability to hang on to vehicles, to materials, and they will lay their eggs on just about anything.
02:48And that's actually how we think it got here.
02:50There was egg masses that were deposited on material that were brought here and missed.
02:54And the egg masses can be rather inconspicuous, just a small, looks like a blotch of mud.
03:00And that little egg mass can hold 30 to 50 eggs.
03:04And so if people want to help out, they can help prevent moving them.
03:09And if they see one, they can squash it and kill it.
03:12The best thing, the best lanternfly is a dead lanternfly.
03:14Tell us more about Penn State's Spotted Lanternfly Management Guide.
03:20Our Management Guide, it's a tool that we've put together after several years of research and several years of experiencing lanternflies.
03:28Lanternfly was also an introduced invasive in South Korea in the early 2000s.
03:33And what it did in South Korea, we expected it to do here, and it has not behaved the same way in the northern hemisphere of, or I should say the western hemisphere.
03:43It's not behaved the same way that it did when it was invasive in South Korea.
03:47And so there's a lot of myths and misunderstandings that were assumed early on that we've since found to be not true.
03:56And so the Management Guide that we've put together helps to address some of those fallacies and also to provide just residents with the best options to try and manage lanternflies.
04:09They can't bite, they can't sting, and they don't do any structural damage to buildings.
04:13So while it's not a good thing to have here, there's no reason to panic and don't make poor choices by using unapproved items as pesticides or making the problem worse by misusing pesticides.
04:27Lanternfly is a problem, but it's not a reason to panic.
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