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The way to best combat the pest would be to mandate the cutting down and removal of the trees that it needs to lay its eggs on. The Tree of Heaven. It basically looks like a giant sumac with similar leaves with shiny bark. I guess its also invasive and has no timber value.
The way to best combat the pest would be to mandate the cutting down and removal of the trees that it needs to lay its eggs on. The Tree of Heaven. It basically looks like a giant sumac with similar leaves with shiny bark. I guess its also invasive and has no timber value.
I had pointed out that when we first bought our house, with five acres forty years ago, that our house was covered with Eastern Tent Caterpillars every spring. So I took down all of the short wild cherry trees on our property. I also sprayed our fruit trees and manually removed any webs. The tent caterpillars seemed to leave our larger (higher) and older wild cherry trees alone. Within one or two years we had no more problems with the caterpillars on our house.
I would like to agree with you about The Tree of Heavens. But from what I read about these lanternflies; it would not be as effective as our cherry trees on the tent caterpillars. The lanternfly diet has a broad spectrum and removing one of their favorites would not be as effective. In this link (https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-...ted-lanternfly) you can read: "....proximity to tree of heaven did not significantly influence the number of spotted lanternfly found on other hosts in a 2015-2016 host plant evaluation conducted in PA." But then it goes on to state: "After spending time on tree of heaven, the insects disperse in the local area to lay eggs just about anywhere." - so it sounds as if it agrees and disagrees with your solution to remove the trees?
fisheye, agreed. wiping out all the crappy 'trees of hell' would be great, but the lanternflies don't require them to reproduce. so it's far from a magic bullet.
now there's concern that Christmas trees containing egg masses (which look like a splash of mud) of these little buggers are going to be shipped out all over creation. what a nightmare for trying to contain them.
Case in point: A woman in Warren County had two clusters of spotted lanternfly eggs attached to her pre-cut Christmas tree last season, and she didn’t notice them until some of the eggs hatched and she saw a few strange-looking insects inside her home in early January, when the tree was still up, Zoltowski said.
“It was amazingly easy to miss until you were cutting branches off,” she noted.
In the Warren County case, two egg masses — each of which can hold up to 30 to 50 eggs — were found on the bark of the tree’s trunk, Zoltowski said.
now there's concern that Christmas trees containing egg masses (which look like a splash of mud) of these little buggers are going to be shipped out all over creation. what a nightmare for trying to contain them.
MY Monroe County is in the quarantine zone and we had/have some major X-mas tree growers that used to ship all over the Northeast and even Canada. I am curious how that industry is dealing with the quarantine?
I live in SE PA, and can verify these damn bugs are everywhere. I keep a can of Raid near me when I sit on my deck, and spray everyone I see. Yes, I know it's not doing anything, but I can't stand them. The worst thing we could do is import their natural predator which is some huge Wasp. Then we will have an epidemic of them! I had heard they need something from the Tree of Heaven in order to reproduce. Is that not true?
I live in SE PA, and can verify these damn bugs are everywhere. I keep a can of Raid near me when I sit on my deck, and spray everyone I see. Yes, I know it's not doing anything, but I can't stand them. The worst thing we could do is import their natural predator which is some huge Wasp. Then we will have an epidemic of them! I had heard they need something from the Tree of Heaven in order to reproduce. Is that not true?
Here is one Penn State link that links the two together: https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/...ecies-to-watch. I have seen other links that suggest the tree of heaven is not needed; so I don't know the real answer. Both invasive species are very difficult to eradicate. One produces prolific seeds and one prolific eggs.
PS For my County, that is also in the quarantine zone, we have more problems with the invasive Japanese Stiltgrass and Japanese Knotweed. I can easily see where the dense canopy of the Knotweed would provide an excellent hiding place for the lanternflies - you would never be able to find them.
I live in SE PA, and can verify these damn bugs are everywhere. I keep a can of Raid near me when I sit on my deck, and spray everyone I see. Yes, I know it's not doing anything, but I can't stand them. The worst thing we could do is import their natural predator which is some huge Wasp. Then we will have an epidemic of them! I had heard they need something from the Tree of Heaven in order to reproduce. Is that not true?
If I remember correctly, it has a preference for Tree of Heaven but is not dependent on it and so can be a problem for lots of other plants.
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