An East Asian insect first found in Pennsylvania around eight years ago, the spotted lanternfly is making its way west towards the Chicago area, via railroad cars, semi trailers and other vehicles.
An adult spotted lanternfly on a tree of heaven in Huntington, Indiana on Wednesday, August 17, 2022. The invasive species, first detected in Pennsylvania more than eight years ago, has recently been found in northeast Indiana.
An East Asian insect first found in Pennsylvania around eight years ago, the spotted lanternfly is making its way west, via railroad cars, semi trailers and other vehicles, hitching a ride or leaving behind egg sacs that take the journey instead. “It’s primarily a threat to fruit growers and it kills grapes, so wine producers would be concerned about it. It also feeds and reproduces on black walnut trees, and the black walnut is a very valued timber for its veneer, so it’s a serious problem for the timber industry.”
“They’re nasty trees so if only fed on trees of heaven, this would actually be a great insect to get that plant under control,” but the insect feeds on more than 100 kinds of plants, Sadof said. “We don’t want to bring in beneficial insects willy-nilly because we don’t want to introduce unintended consequences,” he said.“They’re looking at that as a biotreatment but I think that’s still in its infancy,” he said.
Once the survey is complete, “then we’ll start knocking on doors to get permission to treat some trees,” Burkle said. Kalosky, with the Forest Preserves of Cook County, is hoping for some of that vintner vigilance from people who use the preserves, as well as those who live nearby. Will Kuiper, 24, orchard manager at Kuipers Family Farm in Maple Park, said traps are used to monitor insects on the Kane County farm. So far, the spotted lanternfly hasn’t been reported in Illinois.“We can’t control the migration of an insect but we have a pretty extensive scouting program which involves going out and we have traps for certain insects although they don’t make traps for every single one that we have to worry about in an orchard,” he said.