I’m glad this is not typical weather! I was beginning to wonder if this was just normal for the Reading area. This is a tough spring.
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I used to be right down 422 from you in Myerstown. I can’t imagine the Temps are that different. Just a fluke year I hope!
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Yeah, usually there’s a couple frosts in late April, but not freeze!
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They’re baaaack…
Seems like nobody really cared about them last year, are they still a big problem for any of you? I haven’t really noticed them cause any kind of damage, although I’m sure they reduce yield at scale.
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I wonder if they survived our cold winters? In 2020 the SLFs were thick like a cicada swarm here. I’d kill them by the dozens daily. In 2021 I saw maybe a dozen, total, over the whole summer. So far in 2022 I haven’t seen a single nymph yet. 
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I had not seen them until I went to orchard in southern Lancaster County last fall- they were all over the place. Massive numbers on patio and by sale barns- most were crushed by workers and customers. One orchard said they were a huge problem- they grow apples and pears, organically. I know several wineries around there are horrified by the amounts of SLF. Some of the high spray places did not have many that I saw, but then again I am very wary of eating their produce. I have no guarantee they are following correct spray schedules.
I live a few miles from where SLF was first found, barely see them anymore. There are 1-2 bad years then for a variety of reasons the population goes way down.
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The same thing happened with the BMSB a few years ago. Major crop damage the first year, everyone freaks out, but in a few years enough predators have moved in that it is just another pest on the list.
I don’t have any lanternfly here yet but I am laying down spinosad for moth control and that may be keeping them off my property.
The one new pest causing me trouble is the spotted wing drosophila fruit fly… I am going to make sure to coat my sour cherry with spinosad closer to harvest this year, last year they destroyed the crop.
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I believe it’s a combination of natural predators, reduced numbers of alianthus trees (human removal and SLF killing them from overfeeding), and natural fungus killing them (Organic control of spotted lanternfly is focus of study by Penn State, Cornell | Penn State University). The fungus is interesting, the park they first found it at is down the street from me.
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War of the worlds in action. Local fungus adapts to kill the invaders.
This was one of the theories put forth early in the invasion. Some org i forget was sending out Cordyceps fungi spores. The ones that grow and sprout from infested insects. The hope people would infect swarms and send back samples of any SLF that got killed. They that strain could be isolated and propogated.
Looks like nature did it on its own. its also possible one of those cordycep bombs did help and kick started the process.
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We got a nice heat wave coming our way, a boost for plants or a suffering? How do newly opened bud react to such heat and sun
For those who haven’t met them yet, this is a spotted lantern fly nymph, probably just hatched. They go thru a couple instars getting bigger and redder before turning into the winged hoppers.
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How are Mid-Atlantic folks doing with bugs this year?
I had the usual curculio year more or less, lots of damage but mostly less than what I would have thinned off anyway. There was a period of lots of rain and warm temps and most of the damage I got was in that period. I am using Surround for control.
One thing surprising me is I have zero peach shoot tip damage from OFM now. By this time of year I should have lots of it. I didn’t change my spray regimen at all, but I must have had really good timing on my sprays or something. I am hoping this means I won’t have much in the way of OFM damage in my harvest, usually I get about 20% damaged fruits. Codling moth damage was the usual, I found two dozen or so apples infested.
Next bug for me to deal with is the SWD on my sour cherry. Last year they did it in but I sprayed the cherries much more regularly this year. So far no SWD. I’ll lay down some spinosad if I see them, it is vey effective on fruit flies.
Green plum aphids are usually a big problem in early June, but I chopped down the one plum they were most enamored with and things are not so bad this year… I have hundreds of ladybug nymphs chowing down and keeping things from getting out of hand. So, no need to spray them, for the first time in many years.
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Cherries are coming in here. Usual amount of worms even though I missed spraying all together. Would like to give some praise to White Gold though. Not a large crop sample, but absolutely no worms. With no spray. I’m sure it’s a one off.
This year was not favorable for stone fruits. Not much set and a lot of that is dropping. Pears never let you down though.
I’ve had a lot of OFM but it was my fault for not spraying spinosad earlier. I’ve got it down and there is no new fruit or shoot damage. PC bit some of my Asian pears. There are some spotted lanternfly nymphs to spray, but fewer than last year.
I’ve been seeing a lot more foliar diseases this year. Maybe it was our rainy May contributing.
I guess I would say that the PC is normal. I only have a handful of of years with producing peaches under the belt so I don’t gave a long data set with which to compare. I have had to knock down (twice) aphids on many of the newer apples. The thing that stands out to me so far is the great number of lantern fly nymphs that I have been finding and killing.
Hey the peach tree borer is emerging now… I found a couple casings yesterday at the tree bases. So I did my neem treatment.
If you have not had this pest yet make sure to keep your eyes on your peach tree bases for goo with sawdust in it. They are very common and they could show up any year.
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I would say I had the normal amount of PC damage, some but not enough to ruin an entire crop. I am picking Juliet cherries for the first time with no damage at all, they are pristine with one spray of only Surround. I also have not noticed any OFM damage to the peaches or damage to the tips. I have been diligent with spraying and need to get out there tonight after all that rain over the weekend.
So far this year has been great for strawberries and I have had my first ever harvest of rhubarb after about 5 years of trying. I am just now starting to get blueberries and Jewel black caps. There is one Tomcot apricot on the tree and I have only a handful of Korean Giant pears and Hosui pears. I think I let them overset last year (it’s so hard to know and not be greedy!) There are only one or two Seckle pears, but they have been ruined the last two years by pear scab so I am interested to see if my new program of lime sulfur has fixed that problem.
The Goldrush tree is loaded and the other apples are numerous. Just have to stick with them and hope the moths don’t invade.
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