Hello,
Just wondering what fruit species growers are seeing spotted lanternfly infesting. Official info says peaches, apples and grapes can be affected. Anybody had them on other things - persimmons, pawpaws, pears, plums, berries? Any reports here?
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I live less than 10 miles from where they were introduced. They aren’t a permanent threat, once native predators get used to them the population falls to almost nothing. A year or two of heavy infestation, then drops off. I still see them, but not much.
They can feed on pretty much anything, but they are variable in how much they feed. They hit figs bad as nymphs, but I can’t say I noticed an impact on growth. Didn’t notice heavy feeding on pome fruits. Some feeding on stones, didn’t see any negative effects. No feeding seen on pawpaws, persimmons, and cane fruits. In an orchard setting with fewer choices they may be a bigger problem than in my more diverse plantings.
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I’m also in SE Pennsylvania, and agree with ampersand about overall infestation. Summer is 2020, they were everywhere. Almost like a cicada swarm. Piles of them inches thick. But in Summer of 2021, I hardly saw any. Just the occasional straggler here and there.
In my yard, SLF were heavy on grapes, figs, mulberries, and roses. They liked my kiwi vines a medium amount, but did not swarm them. Occasionally you would see them on paw paws and stone fruit, but nothing major. I did not notice them particularly heavy on my peach, plum, aprium, currants, gooseberry, bush cherry, or honey berry.
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I have seen a lot of them as well… They have not seemed to be any more interested in apples, peaches, blueberries and hazels than in other trees/bushes. I haven’t any grapes, figs mulberries or roses.
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Wow, this is really amazing positive news. Any info on what is controlling them or bringing the population into check?
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Is it possible there is just a boom and bust cycle occurring due to environmental conditions, not necessarily predation? I had not heard much about this but am interested in learning more.
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It’s possible, the nearby park documented some fungus (or bacteria?) Killing lantern flies.
Edit to add: Native Pa. fungi found to be deadly to invasive spotted lanternflies
That park is down the street from me, interesting to be on the front lines.
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Part of the explanation for the boom/bust cycle of gypsy moths lies with the amount of rainfall in the previous season–a fungus does a good job of controlling their population in the wet years. In 2020 we had near drought conditions in my area so their population levels were very high this summer, hopefully the pendulum swings the other way after all the rain we’ve gotten this year. It may be dependent on the timing of the rains and where they are in their life cycle though.
It’ll be interesting to see if SLF has a similar pattern.
We had a huge presence of SLF on our property this year. Mainly due to the fact we had a Ailanthus altissima tree in our wood line. The nymphs were interested in our black raspberries but seemed to loose interest as adults. They did not bother any of our fruit trees which includes apples, apricot, cherries, figs, nectarines, pawpaws, peaches, pear, persimmons, plums, pluots, serviceberry, and a few other hybrids. We killed the tree of heaven so we will have to wait to see what happens next season.
Waking up this somewhat-dormant thread for an update… I had my first SLF sighting last year on my kiwis. This year I have a lot more of them on the kiwis. I don’t have any appreciable numbers on anything else, maybe a couple on grapes and zero on everything else. I am crushing the ones I find to head back the numbers a bit whilst the predators pick up their game … hopefully. If things get out of hand I will probably try Surround, it was a big help on Japanese beetles so seems like it could also help with these nymphs.
Anyway if you have kiwis and are in SLF territory, keep your eyes peeled! I’d also be curious on an update from @dpps and @ampersand on how things are going, it seems like they must have leveled off given the lack of fresh comments.
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Grapes are their favorite in my yard. Second would be on my silver maple. The grape seems unphased but the maple has some bark lesions that may be related.
Hi Scott, that’s correct, SLF were minimal in 2022 and so far in 2023 here in SE Pennsylvania. So far this year I’ve seen maybe a half dozen nymphs max, still in the black and white stage. My memory is that, back in 2020 when the infestation was heaviest, I would have seen hundreds by June, many in the red and black stage. They’re so few this year that I don’t even remember what I saw them on, I just kill then when I see them.
As an FYI, I’ve seen preying mantises eat mature SLFs in the past, back in 2020 or maybe 2021. I don’t know if there are enough mantises around to effect overall SLF population, but at least there are some predators out there.
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