Slowing the spread

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 18th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the hitchhiking pest that officials on the East Coast are begging you to stomp.

NEWS ANCHOR: Millions of trees and plants across the country are being killed by an invasive species. Scientists say the spotted lanternfly has been found in up to 19 states after first being discovered in the United States about a decade ago.

EICHER: The spotted lanternfly likely arrived from Asia on a shipment of stone in 2012. Two years later, adult insects began showing up in Pennsylvania—and this expert hitchhiker has been spreading ever since … nearly 20 U.S. states at last check.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has been following the spread.

LUEDTKE: You can see, like under here, those are their egg masses, and they like cover them with, like a brown layer.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Genny Luedtke is searching the grape leaves at Fables and Feathers Winery for an unwelcome visitor.

LUEDTKE: They usually don't look so like, brown and gross. They usually get a little bit more just, like, reddish. They don't turn, like, bright red, like a maple leaf or anything in the fall. But they don't usually look so gnarly.

The spotted lanternfly is responsible for the leaves' grayish-brown color.

LUEDTKE: They suck the sap out of the leaves and then leave behind, like a residue that gets gross.

Luedtke first noticed the pest among the vines a few months ago.

LUEDTKE: You would walk out here before, and you could, like, shake the vine, and they just all come falling out. It was so gross. Oh here’s an actual one. Ah!

Her family’s winery is situated on a small vineyard in the mountains of central Virginia. The bugs haven’t caused too much damage for the Luedtkes—yet.

But WORLD reporter Addie Offereins spoke with others who are seeing some serious problems. About an hour from Washington D.C. the bugs are wreaking havoc at Casanel Vineyards in Loudon County. Anna Want is the winery’s general manager.

WANT: Not only is it affecting the fruit quality and the vines themselves, but people don't want to be hit in the face. They jump, they hop, you know, they don't bite or hurt. But there's a lot of them. It does affect the traffic and the tasting room as well.

The bugs are easy to identify. They’re about an inch long and their large, gray-ish wings are covered in striking black spots. When they take off in flight or jump to their next perch, their underwings flash a bright scarlet.

WANT: We lost close to 50% of our fruit, between the weather events and the spotted lanternfly damage, which was really unfortunate.

The insects suck the sap out of the plants, crippling entire vines.

And it’s not just vines. They also feed on a variety of plants and hardwood trees. The problem is that they leave behind a sticky sugary substance and that attracts funguses and other insects—both of which can damage the plant.

LOGUE: We were very fortunate to not find it in New York state until the summer of 2020, which did give us some time to get prepared for spotted lanternfly.

Chris Logue works with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

LOGUE: Spotted lanternfly is a very good hitchhiker, and the two main ways that we tend to see it moving were in commercial as well as just regular highway traffic and also along the rail lines. Pennsylvania had set up a permit system for commercial shippers who were coming out of their quarantine areas. We actually worked with the state of Pennsylvania on doing roadside stops.

Despite their best efforts, the fly still sneaked into New York and first showed up on Staten Island. Logue said his state then turned to technology to track the spread.

LOGUE: One of the things that we wanted to avoid was, you know, having to have a person on the phone all the time taking reports. So we utilized an online reporting form where the general public could go in and put GPS coordinates in, they could put a picture in there.

They’ve also started using drones to spot the adults in the canopies of trees and scout for egg masses. The state government partners with Rutgers University to track the genetic material the flies leave behind. That helps them predict where the next infestation might pop up.

Logue said while the flies primarily damage grapevines, there’s other economic costs, too.

LOGUE: There're 31 states that don't have it and that don't want it. California has an exterior quarantine on spotted lanternfly. We've had to begin to look at shipments of products going out and certifying that they're free from spotted lanternfly.

Back in Virginia, Beth Sastre is a commercial horticulturalist helping farmers in Loudon County adapt to their new neighbors.

SASTRE: Each female will lay down between two and three egg masses. Each egg mass has between 30 and 50 eggs. We are not going to exterminate it. We are not going to eradicate it. We can slow the spread, and then till they learn, or they learn, to coexist in our environment. That's the way it happens with all the invasive plants and insects.

She said despite officials’ best efforts, it’s likely the fly will keep spreading west thanks to people who might not even realize they’re transporting the bug.

SASTRE: It started spreading by egg masses and hitchhiking in cars, in construction trucks, and everything. They hitchhike on anything that moves.

She tells homeowners to wrap sticky paper around trees to catch the bugs. For vineyard owners, Sastre says pesticides are an option, but should be a last resort and only with great care.

SASTRE: We warn people that you know when you start spraying pesticides, in this case, insecticides, you are going to kill not just spotted lanternfly. You are going to kill everything else.

Anna Want said they’ve put employees—and guests—to work swatting the bugs at Casenel Vineyards. She bought 500 fly swatters.

WANT: Every event I went to, I had them out. It was a free thing to give people. I was telling all the little children, you need to kill all the bugs for me.

Want said this isn’t the first infestation they’ve dealt with and it probably won’t be the last.

WANT: We've been comparing it to our couple of seasons where we dealt with the stink bugs. There will be a way to fix it, but it might be a rough couple years.

At Fables and Feathers Winery, Luedtke says the staff are already preparing for next year’s growing season. That includes spraying a pesticide on the vines to keep them from laying as many eggs and scraping away the egg masses the flies have already laid.

LUEDTKE: I've been told, like, Dollar Tree spatulas are the best weapon. And you just make sure that they're smushed. I’ve seen other vineyards that use blowtorches and I’m excited to try that. It seems therapeutic to go out there with a flamethrower. Ha.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin with reporting from Addie Offereins.

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