CENTRE CO., Pa. (WJAC) — The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture warned people about spotted lanternfly Wednesday. The invasive species has spread to dozens of counties over the years and threatens certain industries.
6 News spoke with a Penn State University PhD student researching this.
"Pennsylvania was the epicenter of the spotted lanternfly," Pennsylvania Agriculture Sec. Russell Redding told a Washington County crowd on Wednesday. The first time the species was identified in the United States, he added, was "in Berks County in 2014, 15. And we did not know the full impact of that invasive pest, but what we have learned is that it's invasive in every way. It's an invasive socially, economically, and agriculturally. And certainly, it is environmentally invasive, as well."
The spotted lanternfly has spread to nine states and 45 Pennsylvania counties, since then. The counties in our region under quarantine for the bug are Blair, Cambria, Cameron, Centre, Bedford, and Huntingdon.
"As much as we know about the spotted lanternfly," Redding emphasized, "there's also a lot that we don't know, and we continue to learn every season about this invasive pest."
And one of those people learning more about the spotted lanternfly is Anne Johnson.
"And the main thing we're worried about them on here in Pennsylvania is actually grape," she explained. "They can lead to yield losses. So, loss in your grape production and potentially some other effects such as opening plants up to attacks from other pathogens past things like that."
Johnson's getting her PhD in entomology from Penn State and has spent years looking into this species. She told us how these critters wreak havoc on agriculture, one of the state's most vital industries.
"It can be quite destructive if it's left unmanaged," she told 6 News. "For example, we had reports of some vineyards when it first came in, where they were even like losing their plants, losing like 90% of their grape yields. It is if you are willing to use chemical controls, actually fairly easy to manage in an agricultural setting, it's susceptible to most pesticides. So, we're not quite as worried now. What is concerning, is in situations where you either do not want to, or are unable to use, pesticides to manage these guys. We don't really have good alternative tactics right now, so that's when they can become quite problematic."
Johnson's been working on a spotted lanternfly project for a while now.
"So, the project I'm doing right now is looking into predators of spotted lanternfly here in North America, in the United States."
But will these insects eventually go away? To that, she said the "spotted lanternfly is probably something that we're going to have to live with. It's very unlikely that we're going to, you know, completely eradicate populations of spotted lanternfly. They're probably always going to be here. So now, we're just looking for effective ways to manage them and keep them at levels where they wouldn't be harmful, without doing things that would cause harm in itself to the environment."
And she explained that to learn how to manage a subject population, you have to know the subject's predators.
"What we're hoping to get out of my project is by knowing what predators feed on spotted lanternfly that can actually help us somewhat in developing management strategies called biological control, which is where you manage a pest through...predators and things like diseases and living things, to help control your populations. So, with my project, once we know what is feeding on spotted lanternfly here, we can do things like modify landscaping and habitats to encourage those predators. And then they'll bring our spotted lantern fly populations down."
You can help by submitting reports of any predators you see feeding on spotted lanternfly, where it was, and what sort of behaviors it displayed while feeding. To submit a report, you can messageJohnson's Facebook page or email her at birdsbitingbadbugs@gmail.com.
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