Spotted lanternfly update: Learn as much as you can about it

In 2022, I had a chance to see it firsthand in Toledo. And again, the amount of honeydew and black sooty mold stood out. People are not going to like having this in their landscape!

SLF is a species of planthopper which have piercing, sucking mouthparts. They insert their mouthpart into the plant and feed on the sap. According to BugDoc, Dr. Dave Shetlar, Ohio State University Entomologist, they don’t process the sap quickly, so it flows through their body speedily and “squirts” out of their behind.

I can attest to this; I stood under a tree full of SLF in Toledo and could see the sap sparkling in the sun as it “rained” down. My sunglasses, which were on top of my head at the time, had sap on the lens.

I didn’t stick around long enough for sooty mold to develop. Sooty mold is a fungus that develops on honeydew. It is black, and anything and everything under an SLF feeding tree will be covered in honeydew and the following black sooty mold.

We were at one house in Toledo where there was a large maple tree. You could see the adults all up and down the trunk. There was a car parked under the tree and it was covered in honeydew and sooty mold.

There were also loads of yellow jacket wasps on the car as well. The sweet, sticky honeydew attracts these and other wasps and bees.

The good news is that SLF doesn’t kill trees. They are more of a nuisance. The bad news is that they can be devastating to grapes and a few other agriculture crops if not kept under control.

Regular feeding on grapes reduces the health of the plant, leading to death. Ohio grape growers are paying close attention to SLF and are spraying to eliminate it from orchards. SLF also likes hops.

While it won’t kill maple trees, it can potentially reduce the amount of sap. More research is needed to determine the full impact on the maple syrup industry.

I asked BugDoc if he thought that this pest might follow the path of the Japanese beetle. As you have observed, some years populations are high, and some years they are non-existent. He thought that this might be what we will see down the road with SLF.

What can you do now? Learn as much as you can about the pest, including how to identify their preferred tree (tree of heaven) and the egg masses.

If you find an egg mass, report it to the Ohio Department of Agriculture on their website. If it is found in a county in which SLF hasn’t been confirmed, they will want to confirm it first before quarantining a county.

Credit: Contributed

Credit: Contributed