The spotted lanternfly finds its way to the East End; vineyards on high alert (2024)

Click here for Greater Long Island newsletters. Click here to download the iPhone app.

The invasive spotted lanternfly has found its way to the East End, with its presence reported in more than a half dozen locations, according to researchers at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County.

But there have been no reports from vineyards, which face an especially grave threat.

“While foliage of a plant that they’re feeding on looks fine [now], they’re actually tapping into the pipeline of the tree, the xylem and the phloem, and they’re extracting sap,” explained Brian Eshenaur of Cornell University’s integrated post management program, in an informational video posted to YouTube. “That can be really harmful for our grape trees, especially when they’re feeding late in the season.”

“They’re removing so much sap that the plant doesn’t have the resources to adequately survive the winter,” he explained. “So that following spring [the trees] might not come back. We really want to prevent that late-season feeding, particularly in our vineyards. Our vineyard managers know that, and they’re out there scouting for them throughout the growing season.”

The lanternflies have been spotted in the Finger Lakes as well as Long Island’s wine region.

“Individual lanternfly adults have been reported from more than a half-dozen locations around the North Fork,” said Alice Wise, a viticulturist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. “There will be more reports in the coming month or two.”

We asked the experts 5 questions on lanternflies; there’s good news and bad for LI

“SLF is obviously in the early stages of colonizing new areas around eastern Suffolk as well as the rest of the county, where some communities have yet to see them while others — like East Islip and Bohemia —have very high populations,” Wise further explained in an email, along with Dan Gilrein, an entomologist with Cornell Cooperative, which is headquartered in Riverhead.

On the East End, the researchers said the spotted lanternfly has been reported in New Suffolk, Mattituck, Jamesport (at least two reports), Riverhead (several reports) and Laurel. Some were found on beaches and in water.

And there was one report of a 4th instar (final immature stage) nymph from Southampton.

“Currently, there are no reports of SLF in local vineyards,” they wrote. “Of course we are keeping tabs on this situation.”

Native to China and southeast Asia, the spotted lanternfly was first identified in the U.S. in 2014 in Berks County, Pa., according to the National Park Service.

And despite its name, it’s not a fly at all, but a plant hopper more similar to a cicada.

Natural predators include spiders, praying mantises and wheel bugs, Eshenaur explained in the same video, which was posted by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. There are also some fungi that could help control the spread, given the right conditions, he added.

“It seems like those [predator] populations are building where spotted lantern flies are, maybe taking advantage of this new food source,” Eshenaur said.

The state also uses traps to manage and contain infestations:

Credit: Cornell University

“Research is also under way to look at bringing in some other biological controls, so there is some hope for the future in that way,” the officials said. But, they stressed, great caution must be taken.

“There’s a lot of work that’s going on within the research community to try to identify those natural predators in the places in the world where spotted lanternfly is native,” said the state’s plant industry director, ChristopherLogue. “But there’s a lot of regulatory challenges and a lot of scientific challenges and questions that have to be answered before we import something to try to take care of this. So we always try to be very, very careful about that, so we understand and know that whatever we’re bringing in as a predator is not going to cause collateral damage.”

Click here for the latest updates from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which is the leading government agency when it comes to controlling the invasive species.

Featured photo credit: The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on Facebook

Credit: Penn State Extension