Trent Dicks Alerted TreeStuff Webinar Attendees to Spotted Lanternfly

Summary: Trent Dicks alerted TreeStuff webinar attendees Friday, May 15, 2020, to aggressive access of American trees since 2014 by the Asian spotted lanternfly.

side-top view of adult spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) on wooden rail; southeastern Pennsylvania; Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019, 10:52: Walthery, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Trent Dicks, Eastern Area Manager and Mid-Atlantic Technical Manager for Arborjet tree and landscape markets, alerted TreeStuff webinar attendees May 15, 2020, to the Asian spotted lanternfly aggressing American trees since 2014.

Battling the United States’ 502 invasive pests belongs within balanced, broad-based plant health care (PHC), broadcast since the 1980s by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Comprehensive PHC commences with checking disease populations, environment and insects; considering species chosen to combat abiotic- and biotic-caused stress; and conveying biological, chemical and cultural controls. One- to 1.5-inch- (2.54- to 3.81-centimeter-) deep, 6-inch- (15.24-centimeter-) spaced, 24-inch- (60.96-centimeter-) high holes drilled perpendicularly above root-soil-trunk convergences deliver rain-proof, sealed-in, wind-proof treatments near waterscapes.

Injection treatments ease if not end chemical-, construction-, drought-, malnutrition-, salt-, weather-caused abiotic (non-living factor-engendered) and bacteria-, disease-, fungi-, insect-, parasite-, virus-caused biotic (living organism-engendered) stresses.

Mulch, NutriRoot, Phospho-jet, pruning and root hair-friendly Shortstop growth regulator fight fatal, invasive, pesty bacterial leaf scorch, beech leaf disease and botryosphaeria, hypoxylon and seiridium cankers.

No treatments guarded against fatal, invasive, pesty black-bodied, long-antennaed, white-mottled Asian long-horned beetles (Anoplophora glabripennis) getting from New York to Ohio within 22 years, by 2018. Perhaps Chinese and Korean homelands harbor predators hindering five larval instars and mature stages of Asian long-horned beetles from harming tree bark, cambium, heartwood and leaves. No insecticides impede their invading buckeye (Aesculus), elm (Ulnus) and maple (Acer) primarily and alder (Alnus), birch (Betula), poplar (Populus), rowan (Sorbus) and willow (Salix) secondarily.

The piercing, sucking, wood-boring beetles, like canker-juggling fungi and leaf-attacking bacteria and nematodes, but unlike the Asian spotted lanternfly, jeopardize species already judged as weakened trees.

Weakened green ashes and white ashes (Fraxinus), like weakened hackberry (Celtis), rose of Sharon (Hibiscus) and sycamore (Platanus), kindle lesser populations than weakened European ash trees.

Weakened catalpa, crabapple (Malus), cherry (Prunus), dogwood (Cornus), ginkgo, hawthorn (Crataegus), linden (Tilia), locust (Gleditsia, Robinia), oak (Quercus), plum (Prunus) and redbud (Cercis) lack any populations. The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) moved from China, Taiwan and Vietnam into Pennsylvania by 2014 and into nine other Mid-Atlantic and New England states by 2020. Four larval instars and mature stages negotiate grapevine (Vitis), hop-vine (Humulus) and birch, pear (Pyrus), sumac (Rhus), sycamore, tree of heaven (Ailanthus) and walnut (Juglans) hosts.

Asian long-horned beetles observe less obvious overlaps in mature female and male outlines than the black- and yellow-bellied spotted lanternfly, whose female abdomens obtain red tips.

Spotted lanternfly populations plummet when plant health caregivers peel away 30- to 50-egg masses, place sticky bands on host plants and ptovide Ima-jet systemic insecticide applications.

Flowering and woody plants within 10-day, 65-meter (213.26-foot) distances of host-questing larvae perhaps qualify for Arbor Rx fertilizing, soil-enhancing products after the above-mentioned prescriptions and preventions. Bio MP, CytoGro, EnviroPlex, Hydretain, Iron Plus, Mn-jet Fe, NutriRoot and Palm-Jet Mg rectify microbe-, root-, nutrient-, drought-, iron-, chlorophyll-, pruning- and transplant-, and nutrient-related problems. No more than three seasons suffice to show stable, steady success in securing the above-mentioned plant- and soil-strengthening services be they primary problems or secondary concerns.

Plant health care perhaps someday trades integrated pest management terminating Asian long-horned beetles and the spotted lanternfly for integrated pet management twinning their homelands’ tame travelers.

young spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) on fox grapes (Vitis labrusca); Berks County, Pennsylvania; Saturday, July 21, 2018, 10:23: Rkillcrazy, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

side-top view of adult spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) on wooden rail; southeastern Pennsylvania; Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019, 10:52: Walthery, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adult_Lycorma_delicatula.jpg

young spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) on fox grapes (Vitis labrusca); Berks County, Pennsylvania; Saturday, July 21, 2018, 10:23: Rkillcrazy, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_Lanternfly_Berks_County_PA_Late_July_2018.jpg

For further information:

Dicks, Trent. 15 May 2020. "Combating the Spotted Lanternfly." TreeStuff > Webinars > Webinar #124.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIUb_87vhmI

Dicks, Trent; and Brian Walsh. 29 April 2019. "Combating the Spotted Lanternfly." TreeStuff > Webinars.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXWXB5kIn7M&t=461s

Gilman, Ed. 2011. An Illustrated Guide to Pruning. Third Edition. Boston MA: Cengage.

Hayes, Ed. 2001. Evaluating Tree Defects. Revised, Special Edition. Rochester MN: Safe Trees.

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 November 2014. “Spotted Lanternfly Natural History Illustrations and Photographs.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/11/spotted-lanternfly-natural-history.html