Spotted lanternflies are a threat to many crops, including apples along the East Coast.
The destructive invasive species has decimated vineyards in southeast Pennsylvania and is a particular threat to the Finger Lakes and western parts of New York state, according to a July 26 Cornell Chronicle report by Caitlin Hayes.
“This is the critical year for us in New York,” Alejandro Calixto, director of the New York State Integrated Pest Management in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said in the report. “The ultimate goal is to reduce the speed of the spread, which will allow us to get more tools in place to manage it once it gets here, and to reduce the risk to people and agricultural systems.”
The pests were first detected in Pennsylvania in 2014 and have since spread to 11 states in the eastern U.S.
The Department of Agriculture and Markets is leading the state’s response to the spotted lanternfly threat, but Cornell provides key infrastructure for reaching growers.
New York State Integrated Pest Management and Cornell Cooperative Extension work together to provide information to growers through the extension’s weekly growers’ meetings, both in-person and online, including providing kits for identifying the lanternflies at their different life stages and the insect’s favorite host, the invasive tree of heaven, the report said. They let growers know how they can report a lanternfly sighting and — looking ahead — what pesticides and measures for management have been approved and recommended.
Calixto has been providing trainings in Spanish for farmworkers, who can make a huge difference.
Lanternfly egg masses are laid beginning later in the summer and all the way into October, according to PennState Extension, part of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. If farmworkers, a large majority of whom are Spanish-speaking, are able to detect those masses and remove them, that can significantly reduce the pressure on vineyards — and apple orchards.
