[MAIPC] SLF note to Bugwood

[Richard Gardner]

I sent the following note to Bugwood yesterday after looking at their SLF info. Please share as you want.

Spotted Lanternflyresearch note

Richard Gardner

August 24, 2019

The Spotted Lanternflyfrom my experience it is not a threat to forests and just because it is on aplant does not mean it feeds on that plant. I have photos of SLF on a telephonepole and on rusted iron fence posts. What I have seen is it will lay eggs on afood source, but very often on trees around a food source. An interesting quirkI am seeing is that it does not feed on forest trees, but will feed on the samegenus if it is in a domesticated situation.

SLF is primarily aninsect of edges and ecotones such as fields edges, hedgerows, urban andsuburban forests which is where its primary food sources, Ailanthusaltissima and Vitus sp. grow. Locally, I have also seennymphs and adults on Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). The few times I haveseen SLF in a forest it was probably carried there on a hiker, a hunter orvehicle. The gypsy moth is a much greater threat to our forests.

My understanding isthat there are 5 nymph stages with instars 4 and 5 being red. Adults apparentlyhave 2 or 3 stages from just emerged to mature. I am still working this out asI have seen two and possibly three different adult sizes. Along with this, Ihave seen two or three life stages such as two or more instars, adults and alate stage instar and two sizes of adults at the same time.

The quarantine is a sadjoke. SLF has spread into Delaware and New Jersey, possibly New York and hasbeen found in Maryland and Virginia. Scraping the billion or so egg masses inBerks County, PA is a completely lost cause as that would require exploringevery square meter of land in this area and eliminating every food source.

Reproduction - From myobservations SLF just needs a good food source to produce fertile eggs.Locally, I saw egg masses over the winter which hatched in the late spring andthis past Wednesday adults in an area where there are no Ailanthus trees,just wild grape.

Talking with localwineries, SLF is a major threat to them. However, talking with a local orchard,not a threat to peaches and apparently other tree fruit. The past winter with alate hard freeze and the unusual amount of rain over the past couple years hasdone more damage than SLF to local grape vines. 

There appears to be awave phenomenon with SLF where the population builds up in an area, explodesand then virtually disappears. This needs a few more years to follow to beabsolutely certain if this is a long term phenomenon.

I can now locatean Ailanthus tree where SLF congregate by the smell from manyfeet away. In the winter I look for the black sooty mold at the base ofan Ailanthus tree from earlier feeding.

About two weeks ago,the adults started dispersing across the landscape. They nymphs and earlyadults may disperse in a small area. However, mature adults disperse morewidely. (I have seen nymphs in the same spot over several weeks.) What wasbackyard research, with eggs, nymphs and adults this morning became back deckresearch as there were many adult SLF on wild grape overhanging our deck.

We live in northernBerks County just south of Shartlesville. My MS thesis, University of Maryland,completed in 2008 was ironically on Ailanthus altissima.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.maipc.org/pipermail/maipc-maipc.org/attachments/20190825/4085289d/attachment.html>