Lanternflies - What To Do When They Come for Your Trees

They arrived in Pennsylvania back in 2014, and they've done an unfortunately good job at keeping themselves around. If you've encountered the spotted lanternfly, then you know what an invasive and destructive pest they can be. They're fast, excellent at jumping, and even better at reproducing. What can you do to protect your trees from lanternflies?

Over the past 7 years, baseless remedies such as pressure washing, milkweed, dish soap, garlic, glass cleaner, and more have clouded out reliable information on how to get rid of lanternflies. Heather Leach from Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences suggests sticking to non-chemical control methods. This includes swatting them, stepping on them, destroying egg masses (learn to identify these), and trapping them. 

Destroying Egg Masses

Their eggs attach to hard surfaces, such as trees, houses, outdoor furniture, rocks, and more. So take a walk around your property and look for any egg masses attached to things like this. If you find some, scrape it off using a putty knife into a container of rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer. Given their life cycle, this method is applicable from September to May, before the eggs have hatched.

Setting Up Traps

Traps can capture a large number of lanternflies, but are ultimately not effective at protecting your trees. Traps like sticky bands, which are wrapped around the tree, work by capturing the lanternflies as they're crawling up the tree. However it does not prevent the lanternflies from visiting that tree at all, it only prevents them from that one specific area. Our recommendation is to set up traps between April and June, so you're able to capture them in their youth. Before they've learned to avoid the sticky bands.

If you choose to use sticky bands, you must also use a wildlife barrier. A wildlife barrier is a material such as window screening, that is then wrapped around the sticky bands to prevent creatures like birds from getting stuck in the trap as well. 

Another (safer) option is the circle trap. It consists of a funnel-shaped screen material that sends the lanternflies directly into a container. We highly recommend this one. You can purchase circle traps or build one yourself.

Insecticides

If you choose to go the chemical route, proceed with great caution and be sure to follow all of the instructions. It's wise to start with the mildest option and move up from there. We suggest hiring a professional to take care of this. Should you choose to apply them yourself, you have options like soil drenches, bark sprays, or direct sprays available to you.