I have a grape vine that is covered with lanternfly nymphs, and judging by what happened last year, it’s going to be covered by adult lanternflies soon. I’ve been killing them as I see them with Dawn Powerwash Soap spray which kills them instantly but it only kills the one fly I sprayed so there’s still a lot left.
What is working for others? If you use sticky tape traps, I’m interested in the exact brand/Amazon link. If you’ve found an insecticide that works, send me the brand/Amazon link too. I’m desperate!
Pyganic is effective but only works for one or at most 2 days. You have to spray often. It is an organically accepted insecticide. It is also dangerous so use it with caution.
Put soap in your big sprayer and cover the whole vine, that will kill all the ones you hit.
I stopped spraying for them since the damage has not been horrible and I want to give their predators a big tempting feast. The bigger the meal the predators have the more they reproduce etc. Something I learned from ladybugs is too much soap spray can be a bad thing.
So far this year the population is a fourth of last year so it may finally be waning.
I’ve mostly given up trying to kill the nymphs. But, every few days I shake my citrus trees and play whack a mole stomping the 30+/tree to get my irritation out. They prefer new growth everywhere except citrus where they cover everything
Interesting idea. How many years have you had lanternflies? This is my second year and I see no decline in population. I’m not sure how long my grape vine can survive the lanternflies since the bark is missing in so many spots.
I think it’s the fourth year for me if I recall correctly. I think the second year was the worst, absolute masses of them on vigorous shoots. Last year was maybe down by half and this year is down by half from last year. I still have hundreds, just not thousands..
They killed tons of Japanese Maples the year they showed up here. I found them on my grape vines. And some nymphs were trying to eat a watermelon (I killed them, they weren’t doing a very good job of it). I think I first saw them everywhere in 2020 or 2021? I still saw them last year on a feral Tree of Heaven thicket in an abandoned lot. Haven’t been seeing them much the last two or three years.
You can see the ladybugs at work. What lantern fly predation are you seeing? Entomologists seem more cautious in their assessment of the effects of predation on the fluctuation in lantern fly populations. Certainly in entire regions where populations have exploded there have been huge fluctuations. I wonder if your neighbors have seen the same reduction as you have?
By my logic, if the drop is the result of predators it should be noticeable during the growing season itself, as is the case with ladybugs. That would be an indication, at least.
Do you have a neighborhood with a lot of host plants? If its a food desert around you for them, maybe the soap is doing all the lifting.
I haven’t sprayed any soap on them for the last two years so it’s not doing any lifting at all. It very well may not have been predators, it could be something else. I just hope it stays where it is now, a low population doesn’t seem to produce any damage I notice.
Reminds me of gypsy moths. No problem down here in the deep south. Why?
Alas poor gypsy moth, fire ants got em! Yes, fire ants love just about anything that has a caterpillar or larval stage. I’ve seen them “harvesting” worms that fell off of oak trees plenty of times.
Well I have to correct that. I didn’t have many at all of the first instar but I’m just now seeing quite a few of the second instar. I guess they were hiding somewhere. The population is down a bit from last year but not by half.
