Forest Pests

Ohio’s 2024 Drought & Next Year’s Maple Season

by at

Ohio is part of a severe drought that has affected many states east of the Mississippi and is experiencing what many Western states have had to live with for years.  This is all part of the seemingly endless series of weather events that stem from changing climate.  Of major concern to maple producers is the effect this drought will have on maple syrup production during the 2025 season.  Let’s look at the current U.S. Drought Monitor map.

As you can see the extreme and exceptional drought ratings are in southeastern Ohio, and an even larger portion of the state is categorized in the Abnormally Dry to Moderately dry conditions. One saving grace is that the one area currently unaffected is a portion of northeastern Ohio that includes Geauga County and most of its adjacent neighbors.  From experience in the 1988 drought, conditions can change very quickly; however, autumn is a bad time for a drought because you tend to go into winter with lower subsoil moisture reserves. How might all of this affect maple production?

Rather than paraphrasing a brief article by Dr. Timothy Perkins written at the time of the 2022 drought, I will simply quote his thoughts on how drought affects sap flow.

Sap flow is more dependent on soil moisture during the spring itself…so snowmelt and rain during the spring are quite important. However, there seems to be a couple of impacts on sap sugar content and tree growth. Think of leaves as the engine of the tree. The fuel is sunlight. But in order for that engine to run at peak levels, everything else needs to be operating correctly. If soil moisture is lacking, stomates in the leaves close, so carbon dioxide cannot enter the leaves and be “fixed” into sugars. So, drought reduces photosynthetic carbon gain (production of sugars), resulting in reduced growth and less storage or sugars in that ring of wood formed during that time. Fortunately, the sugar we collect as maple producers in sap comes from many tree rings (20-30 depending on tree growth rate and taphole depth), but the outermost tree rings tend to be the most productive (more sugar and higher hydraulic conductivity…meaning the younger pipes/vessels work better), so there can be some small reduction in sap sugar content due to drought. This is more apparent when we have several years of drought in a row.

From personal experience, I would be more concerned with this drought if it extends and expands into the winter. Winter snow accumulation has a major impact on recharging the subsoil and sap flow, and subsoil moisture is everything when it comes to sap production.


Photo courtesy of Bret Kaufmann

As Dr. Tim pointed out the greatest impact is from extended drought that lasts more than a few months or even multiple years.  What the producer is looking at is an above and below ground response to the drought.  During a drought the air temperatures increase, and winds also often increase.  This accelerates evapo-transpiration through the leaves, causing the leaves to dry out.  At the root level, the fibrous hairs on the roots are lost thereby reducing the amount of water flowing through the roots into the tree and up to the leaves.  One of the first things a producer will notice is the leaves drying out and in some cases dropping early.  This can also trigger dieback in the canopy, but many things can cause maple dieback.  In the first year of drought, this is normal and not a major concern.  If the event prolongs however, producers might want to cut back on tapping in multi-year droughts.  This could be nothing more than restricting tapping to one tap per tree, or in extreme cases, the producer might want to skip tapping a sugarbush in the spring of a drought’s second year.  An additional concern during any drought is heightened fire hazard risk.

In the near term, should producers consider not tapping a sugarbush that has been through some of the state’s most severe drought?  This will depend on how long the dry condition lasts and what the soil moisture looks like as we go into spring.  A lot can happen between now and the tapping season.  Heavy rains could change everything, and everything depends on the next several months’ weather going into next season.  One thing to consider is that our maple seasons are coming earlier than the historic norm; another earlier season will cut down on the amount of time the trees will have to recover from this most recent drought – if and when it breaks.  At this point, it is likely a wait and see situation.

SLF Sap Survey – Citizen Science Opportunity

by at

If you are a maple producer located within 25-miles of a confirmed spotted lanternfly detection (and we have a good mailing address for you…big caveat!), you should be receiving an SLF kit in the mail today or certainly by the end of the week.

That kit will supply you with some helpful identification resources, a pickled SLF adult to call your very own, a postcard asking for a few Brix value readings from your maple trees, and a QR code link to an instructional video.

If you do not receive a citizen science kit, but you still want to participate, please do so.  We would be honored to have you contribute.

First, download this file of the SLF Postcard (PDF).

Second, watch this instructional video.

Third, collect as much data as you can during your 2024 maple season.

Fourth, seal up your printed datasheet in an envelope and mail to me at:

Attn: Gabe Karns
Sch of Env & Nat Resources
2021 Coffey Road
210 Kottman Hall
Columbus, OH 43210

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this post or shoot me an email at karns.36@osu.edu.

 

Updates from the Sugarbush

by at

Based on the forecast, it’s hard to tell when our season will launch at the Ohio State Mansfield campus, but we’ve been hard at work readying the woods for whenever Go Time is.

3 years of single tree lateral lines came down from the ACER project that examined differences between sap production in Freeman’s (red x silver or “Rilvers”) maples.

Lateral lines in bad shape from wildlife damage or sanitation issues were replaced.  Some of these issues are pretty small and hard to spot unless you have your vacuum pump running.  Other wildlife damage…guessing raccoon or coyote here, pretty obvious.

Bucked rounds were hauled and split to feed our new demonstration evaporator at the also brand new maple pavilion (more on that later!).

We’re nearly done replacing all of last year’s spouts.

As we find drops and T’s that need replaced, we are shifting to a pin- or peg-style T so that we cut off the old spouts when taps are pulled at the end of season.

New trees that have grown into a minimum tapping size have been added to the system.  Surprisingly, our second main line that originally featured 99 trees when the tubing was installed in 2019 grew by 9 additional taps this year.  This was a good reminder to keep a diameter tape handy when getting your sugarbush ready for the season.  Sure, trees grow slowly, but they are growing and it’s sometimes surprising what just a few years can do when conditions are right.

End-line sensors are out gathering sunlight to keep our monitoring system operational, and we’re adding valves to the end of our main lines to facilitate a more complete and convenient sanitation regiment.

And our invasive species contract to control multiflora rose, particularly where it was worst along main lines 1 and 2, is already paying dividends with increased mobility and ease of access throughout the system.  A chest-rigged brush cutter was used to sever stem clusters in tandem with a timely and targeted application of glyphosate to the cut stem surfaces.  **This is a good reminder that any herbicide treatment in and around a working sugarbush should be done with caution!  Being cognizant of compound half lives, targeted treatment that stays where it belongs, and a well-trained applicator are keys to ensuring these sometimes necessary steps help and don’t hurt.**  Honestly, having the ability to freely negotiate through the woods wherever we please probably contributed to finding 9 additional taps along our second main line.  I also couldn’t help but notice that the majority of our lateral sanitation issues were cropped up around the second main line too.  Certainly trickle down penalties of thorny access because of a nasty invasive thicket infestation in the woods!

You literally could not walk through this area of the forest before, and the stem clumps that are left (and hopefully dead!) are the reason why.

One last major priority for this off-season will be attempting to remedy the long flat (at best!) stretches of main line between our pump house and where the majority of our taps start on main lines 4, 5, and 6.  I’m sure that will be a learning process complete with a couple of bumps in the road, but the goal is to perhaps install a couple lift options to show producers different ways of overcoming this common challenge in Ohio maple woods.  More on this last point later!!

Maple Regeneration: Monthly Maple REVIEW

by at

July’s REVIEW piece lands on the subject of maple regeneration.  Put simply, how do big trees make baby trees and what factors promote or inhibit that process.  This review comes courtesy of a doozy of a 2021 titled paper “Complex drivers of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) regeneration reveal challenges to long-term sustainability of managed northern hardwood forests.”  The team of authors, all from the mitten-shaped state to the north, was led by Catherine Henry from Michigan State’s Department of Forestry.

It goes without saying that it requires a whole bunch of seeds to hit the forest floor in order for a single tree to reach maturity decades later.  But just how complex is the regeneration struggle for sugar maples?  After all, despite a lifespan of 300 years give or take a century, if mature sugar maples do not replace themselves with seedling, sapling, and teenager sugar maples, the ultimate goal of passing one’s genes on to the next generation will fail.  Henry et al. examined research plots in 141 different forest stands to dig into factors related to sugar maple regeneration throughout northern Michigan.  The study sites were all managed with single-tree selection silviculture for decades, a forestry practice that is commonly regarded to be a great tool for regenerating and recruiting sugar maple.  It is important to note potential geographic differences between the study’s region and Ohio; not everything will necessarily apply to our state, but we can learn from their findings as well.

Sugar maples are generally considered to be shade tolerant tree species, and that is a fine way to categorize them from a 30,000 feet above the surface of the earth perspective.  Zoomed in up close however, a simple shade tolerant descriptor is insufficient.  Sugar maple regenerate best under conditions of intermediate canopy openings, and successful production of seedlings and saplings is optimized in larger single-tree gaps that are maintained or increased through time.  The truth is that while maple seedlings are technically shade tolerant, more light is required as regeneration grows into sapling sizes and beyond.  Prolonged deep shading stunts out maple regeneration, and it is important to remember that shade doesn’t just come from overstory trees; ferns, dense midstories of beech, and invasive plant infestations can all starve a cohort of seedlings of the light they require to become saplings and ultimately larger trees.  In addition to growing space, variables of deer browsing pressure, site quality (related to soils), and competing vegetation were considered.

The very first line of the study’s Results section reads as follows: “Stand-level sugar maple regeneration was highly variable within and among size classes.”  It goes without saying that nature contains tremendous variation, and this statement reinforces that idea.  Examining one forest stand and anticipating the next forest to behave identically is foolish, and taking one study and assuming that it directly applies to a novel new region is equally foolish.  All that said, there are absolutely some lessons to be learned.

Maple regeneration was most successful at intermediate basal area levels and at sites with intermediate quality.  Imagine an upside-down U where the peak is in the middle and the start of the curve and end of the curve are low, that’s essentially what the graph would look like.  This plays well with the Goldilocks analogy that we like to use for sugar maples – sugar maples favor conditions that aren’t too _______ but also aren’t too ________, just like Goldilocks didn’t dive straight into a bowl of scalding hot or freezing cold porridge.  The study had some educated guesses as to why this may be.  Excessive basal area (a forest stand that is overstocked) and too many sugar maples in the overstory casts deep shade that even the shade tolerant maple babies can’t survive.  Too few mature maples in the overstory may be limited by seed availability and more easily overwhelmed by deer browse pressure (see photo above).  Low quality sites for sugar maple, duh, did not have a lot of vigorous healthy sugar maples.  But high quality sites were often associated with higher deer densities that likely led to overbrowsing of seedlings and smaller saplings.  An additional explanation is that overstory maples grow so quickly on high quality sites that canopy gaps quickly close thus reducing understory recruitment.

https://oregonforests.org/field_collection_item/485

The study is published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, and authors are encouraged to write a rather in-depth closing section called “Implications for management.”  In these parting paragraphs, Catherine Henry and her colleagues boldly comment that single-tree selection silviculture – a system that ought “to produce ample sugar maple regeneration” – is failing.  While the study’s results were highly variable, factors of deer overbrowsing, site quality, light limitation, and seed availability confounded attempts to successfully recruit sugar maples to the sapling size class in nearly 70% of plots.  The solution is not easy or obvious.  While the authors point to silvicultural harvest methods that open more growing space and release more light into the understory – namely uneven-aged group selection and even-aged shelterwood harvests – they acknowledge a different approach may exacerbate other problems (denser shrub densities, higher success of undesirable species).  Regardless of harvest method, a parting recommendation was that managers take deer population management seriously through increased hunting take or use of exclusion practices, such as wire fencing or natural slash walls.

Bringing this review home to Ohio, what are the over-arching takeaways.  While there are undoubtedly more to consider, I’ll quickly point to 3 recommendations.  #1 – Deer can destroy even the best laid plans, our state mammal HAS TO BE managed.  The best possible silvicultural plan can quickly unravel with too many deer.  #2 – Cutting a single tree here and a single tree there is not likely to recruit your next generation of syrup-making trees.  #3 – Work with a state or credentialed forester to develop a management plan for your woods.  They will understand the complexities and caveats to navigate a timber harvest and help you balance your objectives against the impacts of the past, the conditions of the present, and the goals for the future.

 

Spotted Lanternfly: Monthly Maple REVIEW

by at

June’s REVIEW piece is going to come with a request, but first the topic – spotted lanternfly.  The main question of course is this – will spotted lanternfly impact sugarmakers?  The answer put simply and to quote Brian Walsh from Penn State University’s Extension team, “we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know.”  While that answer may not be comforting or assuring, it is absolutely certain that lots of work is being done to pursue better answers and there is plenty you can be doing as an individual producer to get ready for your likely “not if, but when” encounter with the invasive spotted lanternfly.  Why do I say “not if, but when”?  Look at this distribution map sourced from New York State’s Integrated Pest Management website.  Spotted lanternfly moves with efficiency and moves with coverage.  I don’t see many holes within the infested range where it has not been found.

“Impacts of short-term feeding by spotted lanternfly on ecophysiology of young hardwood trees in a common garden” was published in 2022 by Emily Lavely and a team of researchers among whom the aforementioned Brian Walsh is a co-author.  The paper can be found in the journal Frontiers in Insect Science.

Here is a webinar recorded through Penn State University last November that spotlights some of the key findings from this paper as it relates to maples and maple sugarmaking.  The recording is pushing 2 hours long, but the meat and potatoes of how this research experiment fits in to our current understanding of how spotted lanternfly impacts maples can be found between the 41:00-48:00 minutes mark.

Before I summarize the relevant take home message from the Lavely et al. study, it is worth noting that the experiment used small sapling-sized trees to document the following findings.  What would those findings have looked like if similar work was conducted on larger diameter tapping-sized trees?  In a nutshell, some short-term intense feeding by spotted lanternfly in the autumn impact stored sugars in silver maples immediately, but has no near-term effect on red maples.  Looking at the following spring after overwintering, silver maples rebound but the red maples in the study showed sugar reductions of up to 40%.  Unfortunately, sugar maples are an even larger question mark, but a fall feeding preference list for spotted lanternfly definitely includes the perennial gold standard species for making maple syrup.

So, what can you do in the near-term to brace for impact, be a tiny part of the solution, and be a first observer/reporter for your area?  Here are 3 practical things to consider.

1st – Learn how to identify tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) and CONTROL it.  Tree-of-heaven sits atop the summer feeding preference list for spotted lanternfly and is an excellent (or terrible, depending on your perspective) location to observe spotted lanternfly.  Tree-of-heaven is an invasive species in its own right and is notoriously aggressive and difficult to eradicate.  The Ohio Invasive Plants Council has a nice fact sheet that can help you learn how to identify tree-of-heaven, here’s the Ailanthus control sheet from Woodlands Stewards, and Rutgers University has another fantastic resource for how best to control this non-native pest.  Your first action item in short – identify tree-of-heaven and do your best to eliminate it.  By eliminating the preferred host for spotted lanternfly summer feeding, you reduce the chance of your nearby maples being next on the menu when autumn arrives. 

2nd – Indicate your support to the IR-4 project that you want to see more spotted lanternfly research conducted focused on potential impacts to maple and maple syrup production.  This requires you logging on to a website and formally indicating your support, but please scroll down to the bottom of this post and follow 6 quick and simple steps to engage IR-4 and put this topic front and center on the funding agency’s radar for the next round of awards issued in September.  Again, to hear more about this why IR-4 mechanism is so crucial, listen to minutes 41-48:00 on the Penn State webinar linked here.

3rd – Keep your eyes out for spotted lanternfly and report suspected observations immediately.  Here is a current map of Ohio counties with known spotted lanternfly infestations.  You can link to the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s reporting hotline through this ODNR webpage.  While most press releases show the adult winged spotted lanternfly, detections during the hottest summer months are more likely to be the nymphal stages (shout out to NCSU, my alma mater for the nice graphic below).  Being on the front line of early detection helps ensure agencies can respond as quickly as possible to new outbreaks and share information as effectively as possible.

 

6 Simple Steps to Support Spotted Lanternfly Research through IR-4. 

1) Visit this link: https://ir4app.cals.ncsu.edu/Ir4FoodPub/IS_Search

2) Click the down arrow on the upper-left yellow box labeled ‘IS Number’ and select the option ‘IS00441’

3) This will auto-populate Brian Walsh’s research proposal to pursue effective and safe spotted lanternfly controls on the bottom part of the screen.  Click the live link ‘IS00441’ under the box “SUPPORTING/SIMILAR REQUEST”

4) You will be transferred to a new page where you should enter your email address and go through the verification code process as directed.  You will be given the option to register for future use, or to not have your information saved for future use.  Your choice here does not impact your ability to voice support for this project.

5) Enter more information about yourself (enter “Individual Maple Producer” under Affiliation if you’re unsure how to fill in that field)

6) Finally, comment into the “Additional Reason for Need” box and click Submit.  The text box has a small character limit that won’t allow you to type more than a couple complete sentences.  This is what I submitted, feel free to copy-paste or create your own short indication of support.

Spotted lanternfly (SLF) is poised to impact maple producers, particularly those producers with a prevalence of red and silver maples in their sugarbush. Many Ohio maple producers fit this scenario and need options to combat SLF in order to preserve profitability and tree/forest health.

For more information: Look back at posts recapping Amy Stone’s presentation at 2021’s Ohio Maple Days on spotted lanternfly: Part 1, Part 2.

Borers, Feeders, and Galls Oh My!

by at

Ohio Maple Days 2022 did not disappoint.  The food was fantastic, the vendor room crowded, and the presenters shared a wealth of knowledge of expertise across a wide range of subjects. Dr. Curtis Young, Entomologist, Extension Educator, and Associate Professor, expanded our knowledge regarding maple pests.  Many that most of us were already aware of, spotted lanternfly or Asian long-horned beetle for instance, and lots of lesser known pests.  Before we get into a few highlights, be sure to mark your calendars for next year’s conference December 8th and 9th!

Any attempt to summarize Dr. Young’s talk would fail due to the sheer amount of information that he is able to share in such a short amount of time.  And no notes!  Truly a wealth of knowledge.  Rather than attempt a synopsis, this is a great opportunity to share some general resources and up-to-date information for some of the more alarming maple pests we face here in Ohio.

University of Kentucky Extension has a great webpage that quickly catalogs a wide range of known pests across 4 general categories – leaf feeders, sap feeders, borers, and galls.  While most maple pests are just that – pests, similar to how most of us view the average mosquito, a few present a real and present danger.  That said, if your maple trees are stressed already, a relatively harmless pest can be the proverbial straw that breaks a camel’s back.  Moral of that last sentence, practice healthy silviculture and sugarbush management to ensure your trees are healthy and vigorous.

Asian long-horned beetle are always mentioned in these presentations.  Thankfully, in Ohio at least, control and eradication of Asian long-horned beetle is a success story that we seldom get to herald in the fight against invasive species.  While we keep our eyes out for future infestations, spotted lanternfly has rapidly expanded its range and our state records now show several counties with positive detections.

An excellent website to stay abreast of issues facing plant, shrub, and tree health is Buckeye Yard & Garden onLine where Dr. Curtis Young and many other experts from Ohio State University Extension provide “timely information about Ohio growing conditions, pest, disease, and cultural problems.”

Upcoming Webinars – Weather & Worms

by at

Two webinars are coming quickly on the calendar.  And yes, you read the post’s title correctly…

First, a perennial favorite speaker is coming to Future Generations University “Out of the Woods” seminar series next Thursday, January 19th.  None other than Aaron Wilson from Ohio State’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center will be discussing the weather and how it impacts your sugarbush.  If this talk is anything like usual, he delivers excellent information about general effects and then dials it in to the prognostications that seem to be developing for the current and upcoming sap season.  Click here to register – next Thursday night at 7 PM. 

And second – Wednesday, January 25th at 3:00 PM, Penn State Extension will be offering a webinar called “Stressors of Maple: Dieback and Mortality.”  The webinar will be recorded and sent to everyone that is registered.  The webinar will host speakers from Michigan Technological University and will cover what maple decline is, what is driving maple decline, how earthworms impact maples and native forests, and how to respond if you have maple decline.  For more information and to register for this January 25th webinar, click here.

Upcoming Maple Events

by at

There is a flurry of upcoming maple programming and events to consider.

Of course, the International Maple Conference just concluded up in Lacrosse, Wisconsin held over the latter part of last week and weekend.

Next weekend, the Ohio Maple Producers Association are convening for a great line-up of food, fellowship, tours, and syrup contests.  Dates are Nov 4-5 and additional details can be found here.

Just a few days after, Seldom Seen Farm will host a Woodland Wednesday program from 4:00-7:00 PM on November 9th.  In collaboration with Geauga Soil and Water Conservation District, Geauga County Farm Bureau, NRCS, and host Seldom Seen Farm, speakers will discuss the relationship between modern forestry and the maple industry.  Specific topics will include thinning, tree crown development, soil conditions, and maple tubing in the sugarbush.  All are welcome to this free outdoor event that will benefit the landowner and woodsman alike.  Please RSVP to Kevin Holy at 440-596-9717 or via email (kevin@seldomseenmaple.com).

Lake Erie Maple Expo, the following weekend of November 11 and 12, will host its usual showcase of vendors, talks, and all and everything else maple.

Completing the first half of November flurry, Penn State Extension Educator Brian Walsh will discuss what is known about the spotted lanternfly and observations about maple trees that provide insight as to the impact the insect could have on the industry.  Pennsylvania has endured a longer stint of spotted lanternfly infestation than Ohio, and we can learn more about what to potentially expect by seeing what has been learned by our neighbors to the east.  Register for the November 16 – 10:00 AM webinar here.

Ohio Maple Days – Spotted Lanternfly, Part II

by at

Part I last week focused on the basics of spotted lanternfly.  What they look like, where they are, where they might be going, what to do if you see some, and more.  This week, I want to share a few initial findings (albeit preliminary results) of how spotted lanternfly impact maples.  A big thanks to Scott Weikert of Penn State Extension for relaying these great bits of information.

First let’s start with the good news.  One bright spot of optimism for most maple producers is that while monitoring efforts are seeing spotted lanternfly in the forest, the pest does not tend to have super high population densities there.  Rather, the heaviest infestations tend to be more on the edges.  That is perhaps reason to be encouraged for most maple producers, but certainly not all.  In my own mind, I would imagine a sugarbush surrounded by intact forest on all sides is at lower risk whereas a backyard sugarmaker tapping a few open-grown trees may face more of a threat.

Heavily infested silver maple trees are showing abnormal bud swelling during the fall and producing no seeds the following year.  It remains unknown what the implications are for sap quality, but anytime an insect pest interferes with a tree’s reproductive cycle there is cause for legitimate concern.

It is certainly worth noting that initial data suggest that spotted lanternfly favor silver maple more than red maple.  As sugar maple does not constitute much of the forest composition where spotted lanternfly infestations are heaviest in Pennsylvania, it would be conjecture to rank sugar maple’s preference to other maples just yet.  As the pest moves into more localities, more will be learned.

Finally, some researchers observed that feeding on red maples tends to be extremely intense and concentrated to just a few weeks in the fall.  While no actual mortality has been observed in maples at this time, discoloration of the xylem in branches is a suspected result of heavy feeding.  It is uncertain what that damage means for future sap flow, but it stands to reason that discolored wood may inhibit sap flow if the response is similar to when a tree compartmentalizes the wound of a taphole or other injury.

While this post leaves far more open gaps in our understanding of how spotted lanternflies may impact the maple resource in the future, it is a start.  As the pest continues to infest new locations and studies gather more data, we will be better equipped to anticipate and combat impacts from this novel forest pest.

For more information, see Part I from last week or check out Penn State’s resources for spotted lanternfly to learn more.

If you see spotted lanternfly or other invasive species, please report your findings!  That is the single best way to improve the efficiency of any efforts to fight back.  Click here for more information on reporting through the Great Lakes Early Detection Network (GLEDN).

Ohio Maple Days – Spotted Lanternfly, Part I

by at

Despite significant changes to the timing and schedule of Ohio Maple Days not to mention the ever-evolving challenges presented by COVID, we had a great turnout in Ashland back on December 11th.  A subset of maple producers, about 20 in number, also enjoyed an excellent syrup grading workshop on Friday night the 10th.

During the morning session, Amy Stone (an Extension educator from Lucas County) presented on spotted lanternfly and was kind enough to share her graphic-heavy slide deck with us.  You might consider this a Part I post and I’ll follow-up with a Part II next week.

This half is all about spotted lanternfly.  What do they look like, where did they come from, where are they now, where might they be going, why you should care about them, and most importantly – how to report spotted lanternfly if you do spot them.  Click here to access Amy’s whole slide deck from her presentation on 12/11/2021.

Spotted Lanternfly (Amy Stone) Slide Deck from Ohio Maple Days December 2021

An infestation of adult spotted lanternflies is pretty hard to miss or mistake for something else.

The adults are preceded by 4 instars of developing maturity.  Each stage has a diagnostic “look” and the season when they are active.  Familiarizing oneself with the life cycle and knowing how spotted lanternfly will manifest depending on the time of year is key for solid monitoring.

At first glance you may only notice the one egg mass but look up and you’ll see a second.  Egg masses immediately after a female lays is fairly easy to see, but with passing time, the shiny coat over the egg mass fades and the mass become far more cryptic and camouflaged.

Spotted lanternfly was first detected in Jefferson County, OH, but recently Cuyahoga County has been added to the list of known OH positives.

For a comprehensive dive into spotted lanternfly, dig through the slide deck.  It’s a great exploration of this novel invasive forest pest.

Part II next week will focus on some specific preliminary findings on how spotted lanternfly are believed to be impacting maples.  Because of where spotted lanternfly infestations are currently heaviest, most of the results are from Pennsylvania and most applicable to red and silver maples, but you’ll want to tune back in to hear what some researchers – including several from Penn State University – are starting to learn about the maple – spotted lanternfly interaction.

If you see spotted lanternfly or other invasive species, please report your findings!  That is the single best way to improve the efficiency of any efforts to fight back.  Click here for more information on reporting through the Great Lakes Early Detection Network (GLEDN).