An invasive pest known as the Spotted Lanternfly continues to plague Massachusetts, as officials with the state's Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) look to slow it's spread by informing residents of best practices for containment and extermination.
The insects feed sap of more than 100 different plants, stunting their growth and leaving a smelly sticky liquid. While not deadly to most full grown plants, saplings are particularly vulnerable. Their residue is called 'honeydew', and can often drip down from the plant they're feeding on. That can make it a particular nuisance to homeowners and farmers.
"So if there are branches of a tree that are hanging over your porch or your yard, then everything is going to get coated with this sticky stuff," explained Jennifer Orth, a biologist with MDAR and their resident Lanternfly expert. "And then the honey just starts to ferment and gets a fungus on it that we call sooty mold. It's this gray, powdery fungus, and it can be slippery and it can start to to smell. And that can cause a problem at residences, but also in orchards, at nurseries, on farms. So that's why we're concerned about it."
In an August announcement, state officials said the Lanternfly has been found in more than 50 cities and towns, across nine different Massachusetts counties. According to a heat map of Lanternfly sightings maintained by MDAR, the bugs tend to settle in more metropolitan areas — including a concentration of sightings in Hampden County, centered in Springfield. It turns out the bugs are particularly attracted to a hardy, also-invasive plant.
"The link here is that the favorite preferred host plant of the Spotted Lanternfly is itself an invasive species known as Tree of Heaven. And Tree of Heaven is really adept at spreading in urban areas," Orth said. "If you drive around Springfield, you see a lot of Tree of Heaven."
So what do you do when you see the pest? That depends on the context you're seeing them in. Farm or orchard owners who find mass amounts of the insect generally have carte blanche to kill the bugs and protect their crops, but the state is asking for a little more grace from residents who may pass a singular Lanternfly while out walking.
"For Massachusetts, we were not going out of our way to say, 'stomp it' or 'smash it' or anything like that because until very recently, there weren't a lot of places in Massachusetts where there were high numbers of Spotted Lanternfly," Orth detailed. "And we want to make sure that before anybody is killing what they think is a nuisance pest, that they are able to identify it correctly. We don't want them indiscriminately killing a lot of native of insects when they do that."
Orth says in that case, it's best to take a photo of the Spotted Lanternfly and report your sighting so it can be including in MDAR's tracking and mitigation efforts. Ultimately, their goal is to slow the spread of the invasive pest, because total extermination is likely already out of the question.
"Based on what we've seen in other states that have had the Lanternfly longer than Massachusetts has, this pest unfortunately cannot be eradicated," Orth said. "And because of that, at the the state and federal level, we've been working on slowing the spread so that we can give farmers and other businesses a chance to use tools that either are available now or hopefully will be in the future to manage this properly."
MDAR is directing people to their dedicated web page for the Spotted Lanternfly, which maps out sightings and provides resources like animated videos to explain how to deal with the bug when you see it.
