What are you guys/gals doing for SLF management?
I have peaches mainly. What are your personal opinions on when to spray and what to spray? I’m thinking permethrin as usual. Any tips appreciated. They’re here in NE Ohio now and want to be proactive, but not over active.
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Grow sacrificial grapes as a trap crop.
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I have been doing nothing; they have not made a big impact on anything so far for me. Well, early in spring I sprayed soap on them. If you have a lot of the nymphs in a local spot, insecticidal soap works very well.
Yes we have plenty of them. Here is a tree of heaven in the neighbors yard:
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Good shit. Thanks for the info. It’s a shame…they sure are pretty.
Yeah they love tree of hell. I remember reading a story that a lot of predatory insects, birds, and chickens are making meals out of them now. But toxins from TOH can make them unappealing like monarchs with milkweed and zebra swallowtail with pawpaws.
I don’t see the point in recommending to people to go out of their way to squash them all. They’re here to stay now. Rip out as much TOH as possible and let the smaller insect eaters gobble them up.
As for in the orchard, like Scott said, your mileage may vary. If they’re not out of control or noticeably growing in numbers I wouldn’t go too far beyond what your normally do.
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I had them all over my grapes last year. The nymphs seemed to like watermelon as well. I just squished them. They killed two of my neighbors Japanese maple trees. Haven’t seen many this year besides on TOH and possibly black walnut and honey (or black I can’t tell them apart) locust in an abandoned lot.
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I live a few miles from where they were initially introduced (Berks County, PA). The trend is usually they are pretty numerous for a year, maybe 2, then fade to be a nuisance as wildlife figures out they are edible.
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Same scenario here. First year they appeared there was a few. Second year there were hundreds. Years after that I only saw a couple here and there. I also killed the trees of heaven on my property the year i had the biggest population. Poison was the way to go. If you just cut them down they will pop up all over the place! I had some babies pop up over 75 feet away from a mother tree. If you face that scenario pull them out of the ground as soon as they pop up. Kinda like whack a mole on a much more grand scale!
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I’m not sure when something might be available for home users based on this, but it sounds like a reasonable trap could be developed based on this research:
For bigger ones, you can cut firewood. Ailanthus/Tree of Heaven splits pretty good and has similar heat values to other medium hardwoods like red maple. It’s a fast burner though apparently, which is good or bad depending on use case.
Some of its sister species in the same genus can reach almost 200 ft tall and are supposedly somewhat important timber trees and some produce a resin that makes a fine incense. Kind of sounds like we got the crappy, short, stinky member of that genus unfortunately. The irony being, the one we got is Ailanthus altissima, altissima is Latin for “tallest.” Womp womp.
Interestingly enough, it’s actually pretty uncommon where I live. It’s a major invasive further west in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, but out here I almost never see them. We do get lots and lots of chinaberry though, which is pretty similar if unrelated. That and “mimosa” Albizia julibrissin. Down here, I think I’ve seen spotted lanternfly once in my life.
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SLF killed or messed up like half the Japanese maples I see over a two year period, and a couple other species and were all over the place, and then I assume the birds started eating them. I saw a bunch of nymphs on a Tree of Heaven tree this year and a few random adults, but they’re no longer everywhere.
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Some vineyards near me are planning to use tractor mounted vacuums to suck them off of the vines. Soap sprays really do kill them quickly, but depending on the populations, more will be back the next day. Eventually the populations seem to collapse.
This discussion is really encouraging, b/c here in central KY we do not have them yet, but if trends continue we will within the next 5 years. I surmised if they congregate in mass on tree trunks, could a quick pass or two of a weed torch be an effective and fast population control in an orchard? Any thoughts or experience with this?
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