'It’s like waking up in a nightmare.” Some Pennsylvania residents say fighting an infestation of lanternflies, a problematic pest that threatens $18 billion worth of local agricultural and is causing major issues for homeowners, is like gearing up for war.
And still the invaders come, hordes of them, relentless and seemingly inexhaustible. The lanternflies’ rampage has been slowed but not stopped.
More worrisome, the state agriculture department says the lanternflies threaten $18 billion worth of Pennsylvania agriculture, including tree fruit, timber, hops and especially grapes. And the bug has expanded its range into New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia, alarming officials in those states and beyond as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is involved in containment and suppression efforts.
The yearslong infestation poses an existential threat to grapes that supply Pennsylvania’s $4.8 billion wine industry. Scientists from Penn State University, Cornell University and elsewhere are trying to prevent that from happening. They’re testing chemical and biological methods of control, including native fungi implicated in a lanternfly die-off in Berks County. Government contractors, meanwhile, are removing tree of heaven — an invasive tree that is the lanternflies’ preferred host — from public property. The states with the heaviest infestations have established quarantines meant to limit the bugs’ spread.
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