The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) continues make the news, both locally in Ohio, and across much of the eastern United States. While adult SLF are still active in Ohio, as a result of the warmer than average temperatures that we have been experiencing, numbers are appearing to decrease from earlier observations in the field. Freezing temperatures will kill the remaining adults that continue to feed, lay eggs and be a nuisance simply by their presence and the sticky sweet honeydew and the sooty mold that follows in the landscapes, and its potential to be an agricultural pest that threatens vineyards and more.
Last week, the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) had received confirmation from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that the first detection of SLF was made in Fulton County, Georgia on October 22, 2024, and confirmed by USDA APHIS on November 14, 2024. The first confirmed detection of the SLF was made in Pennsylvania in 2014, a decade ago, and has since spread to 18 states. This first detection in Ohio was in 2020.
Here is a current list of states with SLF: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia (November 2024).
Ohioans have done a tremendous job reporting SLF either through the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s (ODA) Online Reporting Tool (https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/1b36dd2cf09e4be0a79776a6104ce1dc) or using the Great Lakes Early Detection Network App (https://apps.bugwood.org/apps/gledn/). In the month of September, ODA received over 4,000 reports from across Ohio. While the majority of those reports were from counties already known to be infested, there were reports from other counties that continue to be follow up on and determine the extent of the insects’ presence – was it an individual hitch-hiker, or a reproducing population.
If you see SLF, at any life-stage, you are asked to report your observation, including a clear photo, from counties NOT already quarantine. Those counties include:
Link to map on the ODA website: https://agri.ohio.gov/divisions/plant-health/invasive-pests/invasive-insects/slf
- Belmont
- Columbiana
- Cuyahoga
- Erie
- Franklin
- Hamilton
- Jefferson
- Lorain
- Lucas
- Mahoning
- Muskingum
- Ottawa
Although the Spotted Lanternfly does not pose a direct threat to human health, it feeds on a variety of plants, including grapes, hops, stone fruits, and hardwood trees. Its feeding weakens these plants and produces a sticky, sugary fluid that encourages the growth of sooty mold, further harming crops. While the SLF prefers the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), it can significantly impact many other species.
SLF overwinter in their egg stage, which then survive through the winter months until hatching in the spring when temperatures warm up. This winter, we encourage Ohioans to look for egg masses where populations where known to exist and remove those that are within reach as a way to decrease numbers in 2025.
Egg masses can be laid on nearly any surface. While often we think of the egg masses on branches and trunks, the photo below is an egg mass laid on a tombstone in a cemetery in Toledo, Ohio.
Research continues to be done to learn more about the insect, its life-cycle and biology, host preference and improved methods for management. There continues to be efforts on the developments of a trap designed as a preferential place for the adult females to lay eggs. This trap is called the lampshade trap and is a result of the work of Dr. Phil Lewis, Amanda Davila-Flores, Melissa Benzinger-McGlynn with USDA APHIS, Forest Pest Methods Laboratory in Buzzards Bay, MA.