Coming to an orchard near you, The Spotted Lanternfly

Theres one near my job in a median area i keep wanting to bring my billhook machete to work. Me in scrubs going medieval on the thing with a machete.

Hmmm. NSFW activity maybe.

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I feel u. I have a few invasives i have to deal with too.
Im curious as to how the TOH relationship with these narsty bugs plays out. Like Scott said maybe some predators will step in.

Bet they make good fish bait. Colorful.

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Wonder what the numbered ā€˜Biomeā€™ factors are. i guess winter lows and humidity maybe are in there.

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Looks so similar to Sumacā€¦

http://identifythatplant.com/two-similar-plants-with-compound-leaves/

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Sumac leaves have serrated edges. Alianthus leaves have a small lobe on each side, under each lobe is a nodule/bump.

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I just hope the bugs donā€™t get confusedā€¦ Thereā€™s a lot of sumac in my neck of the woods :wink:

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I not sure, but I think not all TOH have seeds like those. Only the female trees do. ?

Having seed-clusters is what I based my tree removals on last year. Iā€™m thinking Iā€™m left with male trees.

https://extension.psu.edu/tree-of-heaven

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Itā€™s weird, I just started hearing that there are male trees but from what Iā€™ve seen if theyā€™re over a certain height they all have the seed podsā€¦

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Your picture of the SLF on the trunk makes me want to bust out the flamethrower. Well, if I had a flamethrower.

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Yeah the only way I can tell the difference between the two is from the seeds. We only have a few around here (E. IA). I saw one large mature ToH near the Czech quarter in my city and wanted to go buy a quart of Tordonā€¦

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Just found this guy on the concrete in Philly. Squished it something good and reported to Penn State Extension.


Weā€™re all doomed, doomed I say.

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I found one in the greenhouse today, those suckers can really jump. Didnā€™t want to swat my plants so I tried grabbing it from behind and it launched, took a bit to find it again and flicked it in the head to stun it, doesnā€™t seem like the can see very well.

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Theyā€™ve found one in Connecticut.

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NYS has a bulletin out describing overwintering egg masses

https://www.dec.ny.gov/press/118680.html

Here is one

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I was cleaning up the garden here a few weeks back and I noticed a half dozen or so blue jays acting a little peculiar. After watching them for a few minutes, I saw that they were flying into the trees that were infested with the lantern flies, picking off the fat females filled with eggs, flying off to another tree, eating them then going back for more.

Hope some other birds start doing the same!

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Niceā€‹:bangbang::bangbang: @J.D
I think @scottfsmith said he was hoping our natives would get a taste for them. Thats a good sign

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The latest research out of Penn Stateā€“

-SLF does not need Alianthus to complete its lifecycle. Alianthus does seem to speed its development but it can get to adulthood relying just on Walnut, Maple, etc.
-Regarding trees in your backyard (non commercial), SLF is a plant stressor but will not kill an otherwise healthy tree. It can take out a limb on a Black Walnut because of how the nymphs congregate but the tree will recover.
-The two species of parasitic wasp are still a long ways away from being of use. One has difficulty building its population and one is finding non-target (native) species to be at least as tasty as SLFā€¦
-Initial results of the use of beauveria bassiana seem very mixed. Vineyards are not seeing a reduction in SLF numbers after spraying the woodline adjacent to their blocks.

My takeā€“lots of really good research coming out but we seem to be treading water here, hoping for a real solution to come alongā€¦

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I had them on my property for the first time last fall, almost entirely on my grape vines(Northampton county PA). They seemingly came outta nowhere and by the end I mustā€™ve killed over a hundred in a month or twos time. Egg sacks were layed on grape vines, dogwood, Norway maple, an old cherry tree, and the metal poles of my pergola.

My observations:

Eggs were consistently layed on the underside of a horizontal branch or poles that are relatively smooth; rough bark areas I saw no egg masses.

Adults were all dead after our first frost, stuck to whatever surface they were on when the frost hit.

Adults seem to like older branches(3-5ish years old) of the grape vines on my property. Nymphs this year like last yearā€™s growth on the grapes. I also noticed roses were a huge attractant for nymphs also.

Hops, mint, and figs(younger plants) saw no more than a handful. Juliet cherry, apple trees, and pawpaws saw none that Iā€™m aware of. Vegetable garden didnā€™t see anything either.

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A few weeks ago an adult SLF was found at a vineyard in the Finger Lakes and just this past week they found egg masses in Ithaca. New York State Announces Fall 2020 Update on Spotted Lanternfly | Agriculture and Markets

In Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA) my buddy found a dead adult while hiking in White Oak Park, about a 15 minute drive from my place in Westmoreland County last spring. I will have to be vigilant with looking for Tree of Heaven around my place and deal with it accordingly. The scary thing is that over the life cycle, this bug takes many forms that are drastically different in appearance. Itā€™s hard enough to educate the general public about it in the adult form. My wife works for forestry and theyā€™re all pretty unhappy with the implications of this particular bug on our ecosystem. Hopefully all the Bluejays in the neighborhood will gang up on these bugs when they show up instead of the other birds they usually choose.

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