Prince William County Surveying For Spotted Lanternfly

Press release from Prince William County Government:

July 13, 2021

Spotted lanternflies feed on tree sap. If enough Spotted Lanternflies feed on a tree, it can cause decline or death especially in the presence of other stress.

“In nymph stages, they’ll feed on the extremities of the tree where the wood is still soft,” said Nate Nagle the Prince William County Department of Public Works’ environmental program manager. “As they get older, they’re able to actually pierce at the base of the tree. You can get thousands of adults feeding on one tree. It is almost like a leech taking all the blood out of your body. That’s what they’re doing to trees, just draining that constant sap source.”

While the spotted lanternfly feeds on 70 other tree species, the pest’s preferred food source is the invasive tree of heaven that was brought to the United States from China in the 1700s. Tree of heaven trees can be used as a bait. The procedure involves injecting the trees with insecticide to kill spotted lanternflies.

“You can find some tree of heaven and use those as sentinel trees. You would eliminate a certain amount of tree of heaven in that area. You would treat the other ones with insecticide knowing that there’s a really high likelihood, that at some point, all the spotted lanternflies in the area are going to go to those trees.”

The spotted lanternfly was first confirmed in Virginia in 2018 and in Prince William County in 2021. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors recently added spotted lanternfly to its list of invasive species which authorized the environmental services division to set traps and survey for the pest. The division has placed traps across the county, mostly in main traffic corridors. The invasive pest often comes into an area by transporting goods, such as pallets, firewood, stone, vehicles, or any other smooth surface the eggs can stick to, imported from an infested area.

“We have approximately 50 trap locations throughout the County at high-priority areas to see how far the population has established or extended,” Nagle said. “We have identified one location where they showed up. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and United States Department of Agriculture is on location to delimit where the population is, and they are actively taking steps to manage the population.”

In addition to the traps, the division is monitoring an additional 150 locations in hopes of spotting and deterring spotted lanternfly spread.

Nagle said the best way to control the insect is to get help from the public. “There’s a chance that we can certainly keep this initial area in check for a period. It’s all about how much buy in we get from the public as far as moving materials. The faster we can find it and the smaller the population is, there’s a likelihood that we can manage those areas of infestation.”

“This is a unique-looking insect in both the immature stages and the adult stages. The more we get people to get a good look at a picture of these insects and say, ‘This is what I’m looking at.” The faster we find these areas the better it is for us,” Nagle said.

Pictures of the spotted lanternfly in the egg, nymph and adult stages can be found at the Virginia Cooperative Extension website.

Homeowners who confirm spotted lanternfly can set traps or call environmental services at 703-792-6279 for help.

Visit pwcva.gov/about-es to learn more about spotted lanternfly and to report sightings.

Controlling spotted lanternfly could save thousands of trees and save County residents money by cutting down on the cost of removing damaged trees.

This press release was produced by Prince William County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.