Knowledgebase

lantern fly egg removal? #889369

Asked November 05, 2024, 11:28 AM EST

Hi - We have a few trees in our yard that have attracted lantern flies - and now the females are laying eggs on it. We'd like to get help removing the eggs - do you know of any businesses/people who do this sort of pest removal? Also - I vaguely remember reading somewhere that one way of mitigating lanternflies is having a ring on the trees during the spring that can capture the young as they move down the tree. Is this true?

Anne Arundel County Maryland

Expert Response

We are not aware of particular companies that offer Spotted Lanternfly egg mass removal as a service, though it should be a fairly straightforward task for them to do, as it's just physical scraping or squishing, or spraying with horticultural oil (dormant oil) to smother them once the tree leaves have shed. The latter would require a pesticide applicator's license since it's a commercial application (not because the oil is too risky for the public to use), and most landscaping companies will have people on staff who hold this certification. Extension doesn't collect information on landscaping companies or recommend particular businesses, but a candidate for hire will probably not be hard to find. They should not need to spray anything else (or anything at all, if they use manual alternatives) for lanternfly, as the adults are about to die off, and no pesticide is only going to affect lanternflies alone.

A physical trap wrapped around a tree might capture and kill some lanternfly nymphs earlier in the season next year, but it won't remove them all. We do not recommend the use of any type of sticky/adhesive band around the trunk, as it can too easily capture other harmless organisms, and may harm birds. Information about trap design can be found on the lanternfly page above, in the management section near the bottom of the page.

Miri

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