Ask the Expert: How do I protect plants from spotted lanternflies this year?
- Systemic insecticides for spotted lanternflies can harm pollinators.
- Physically remove spotted lanternfly egg masses before they hatch.
Editor’s note: Throughout the growing season, Mike Hogan, OSU Extension educator for Agriculture and Natural Resources in Franklin County, will answer gardening and home landscape questions submitted by Dispatch readers. Send your questions to hogan.1@osu.edu.
Q: We saw many spotted lanternflies on trees and berry bushes in our yard last summer. Can we treat these plants this spring to protect them from this insect?
A: There are some systemic insecticides labelled for spotted lanternfly control, including imidacloprid, but the problem is that systemic pesticides can be very dangerous to pollinators and beneficial insects.
Systemic pesticides are absorbed into the roots or bark of plants and move throughout the plant. When spotted lanternflies feed on a plant that contains a toxic level of a systemic insecticide, they will die.
Unfortunately, when other insects feed on a treated plant, they too will die. This is especially true when pollinators feed on the pollen or nectar of treated plants in bloom.
If you saw spotted lanternfly adults on plants in your landscape last summer, a safer ecological approach would be to inspect the trunks and branches of trees and shrubs in your landscape for the presence of egg masses left by this insect last fall. These egg masses can also be found on outdoor furniture, decks, utility poles, rocks, fence posts and buildings.
These egg masses look like blotches of dried mud spread on vertical surfaces. Each of these egg masses can contain up to 50 spotted lanternfly eggs. Finding and destroying these egg masses before they hatch can be a very effective control tool for the spread of this insect.
Egg masses can be scraped off surfaces with a paint scraper and placed in a plastic bag containing rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer, which will kill the eggs, or smashed and discarded in household trash.
For color photographs of spotted lanternfly egg masses and the insect at different life stages, go to go.osu.edu/SLF.