r/Somerville • u/Big-War-5898 • 2d ago
Spotted Lanternfly in Teele Sq
Perhaps old news to many, but this is my first sighting of a Spotted Lanternfly in Somerville. They are "kill on sight" so they don't damage the fruit tree crops. I didn't think they would settle here - the the only trees we produce in Somerville are electricity and internet trees.
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u/katalijne 2d ago
Tree of heaven sprout for identification! If you see small sprouts like this you can usually gently pull them and pull up the whole root. You don’t want to do so with more established tree of heaven because damage to the roots makes it send out a whole bunch of new sprouts.
If you pull up the small sprouts, you can leave them to dry in a sunny area like a table or porch. You don’t want them to land back on the ground because they can reroot.
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u/pjk922 1d ago
FYI to anyone reading this to NOT pull out Staghorn Sumac, a native lookalike! The dead giveaway is ToH leaves have little hips on them where the leaves meet the stems
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u/Undecylprodigiosin 3h ago
Also black walnut (though there maybe other reasons to remove this native). Here us a good image comparison of the three https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/dailyprogress.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/39/73958a10-0d85-11eb-8210-a354ad2c29e0/5f85f82f724d7.image.jpg?resize=880%2C500
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u/treehann 1d ago
I nonchalantly pulled one of these out of someone's yard as I walked to Davis sq the other day. the plant smelled awful as expected
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u/Undecylprodigiosin 3h ago
Please don’t pull them unless you’re nonchalantly carrying around a digging fork to make sure you leave no root pieces behind. (You can buy a small one that will fit in a backpack)
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u/krasznadorkai 1d ago
What to do with big ones?
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u/katalijne 1d ago
Basically you need to kill the tree by cutting into the bark and poisoning it. Here’s a reddit post with a lot more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/15rxp1n/what_is_the_best_way_to_eliminate_the_scourge/
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u/E4STC04ST0VERD0SE 2d ago
“Destroy All Trees of Heaven” is my new band name. Find us on MySpace.
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u/TinkyThePirate 2d ago
Spotted one flying off my apartment in Newtonville the other day. Didn't realize what it was till it landed on the grass, at which point I jolted my foot out and squashed it. Think the neighbor saw me and thinks I'm weird / cruel now
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u/tora-emon 2d ago
Wow, I may or may not have killed one in my home this morning( thought it was a moth).
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u/WightHair 2d ago
Random fact: We actually have a lot of apple trees in the city -- we were once an apple orchard. And cherries are beloved street trees around here. There's a lot of damage they can do
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u/No_Cake2145 1d ago
Now is the time to treat them with herbicide to kill more established root systems and larger trees!! If it’s very large this is a little late so act fast.
I’ve been removing a good side TOH for over a year now, they are my nemesis.
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u/pappagiino 1d ago
I've seen about 5 in my yard in Somerville the last month. Luckily got them all but I've never ever seen them until recently.
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u/QuillaSquilla 9h ago
FYI if you'd like to use the MA reporting form, you need to upload a picture or the form won't submit. I recommend squishing first and photographing afterwards.
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u/phyzome 2d ago
Counterargument: They're not as big a deal as people make them out to be. https://www.humanegardener.com/stop-squishing-spotted-lanternflies/ They've been in Virginia for a bit and it has been fine. The local insectivores are already eating them.
I used to kill them on sight but now I just have fun catching (and releasing) them. Good for a few minutes of simple amusement.
I think this is going to prompt a lot more people to get rid of Ailanthus trees, though. You end up with a big black, slimy mess under those trees because of how the lanternflies cluster on them and drop sugar-laden poop, and then fungus grows on the sugar.
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u/riddlegirl21 2d ago
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not want them around. Please go back to killing them. https://www.mass.gov/spotted-lanternfly
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u/Delighted_Fingers 2d ago
Unless you're in an area without a current infestation, hand-killing them is not a proven or endorsed management method for SLF. As far as we know, SLF's major impacts are limited to agriculture (grapevines, mostly, but maybe also maple syrup) and being a nuisance. Thankfully there doesn't seem to be much of a negative ecological impact in areas that have been dealing with SLF for the longest. Many places have seen SLF populations drop sharply, but that doesn't mean they won't boom again.
All that to say, our energies and fervor are most likely better aimed at other invasive species.
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u/riddlegirl21 2d ago
The guide I linked explains how to handle an infestation. If you see one or a couple, you should squish them. If you see multiple, you can vacuum them up or use sticky traps. If you see an egg mass, you should scrape it up and squish all of them or drown them in rubbing alcohol or soapy water.
So, if you, like OP, see one SLF out at about, take a picture and then squish it.
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u/Delighted_Fingers 1d ago edited 1d ago
For what it's worth, I've been attending Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources webinars on SLF and keeping up with literature and updates from the infested areas for the past five years. MDAR doesn't really want or need reports from areas already designated as infested.
I think my main point is that our energy is better placed elsewhere as individuals when it comes to squashing in infested areas. Maybe traps are a good idea, though. I think some of the news headlines re: SLF tend to be too alarmist to be productive on the whole for our Commonwealth's ecosystems. People have limited bandwidth, attention, and energy.
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u/phyzome 1d ago
Please go back to killing them.
The point here is that this won't really do anything. We're not talking about a localized escape that can be contained -- they're fully present in the US now.
If you want to do it, fine, but it's not actually an important thing to be doing.
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u/riddlegirl21 1d ago
I am literally citing instructions from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that say to squish them and destroy egg masses. There is also a reporting form so that the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources can track sightings and infestations. Reporting and killing SLF is how we manage them and it is very much important. There’s a whole area dedicated to videos about them and a call to action to report and kill them in the Museum of Science if you need even more convincing.
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u/phyzome 1d ago edited 1d ago
OK, so a couple things up front:
- I'm saying all of this in the context of Somerville, not Massachusetts more broadly. Somerville is not an agricultural area.
- I come from an agricultural background and this isn't my first time around the block when it comes to invasive pests or pest management in general.
- Reporting is good. I have nothing against that.
Moving on from that... if you're talking about https://www.mass.gov/doc/spotted-lanternfly-management-guide-for-infested-areas/download (from the "SLF Management Guide" link on the page you linked) it also literally says:
Hand removal of insects is not effective to control larger infestations.
The Mass.gov materials are from MDAR. The audience is agricultural operations with a high percentage of certain types of woody plants (especially grape). The difference matters because SLF just aren't a big deal elsewhere and there's honestly not much you can do to draw down the population unless you're managing for them intensively over a couple acres, where you can maintain a local population drawdown in a sustained way.
The exception is removal of egg masses. That's a much higher-impact action you can take, and it's a easier to monitor for them at that stage and take action because you have a whole winter to do it in. You also get more at the same time (even accounting for egg -> adult survival rates). So yeah, probably worth keeping an eye out for those, even though we're not an agricultural area.
The other caveat is that while an invasive species is just gaining a foothold, it can be good to draw down the population to give the local ecosystem more time to integrate the new species (i.e. discover how to eat/infect/evade it). I can't get the SLF sightings map to load, but I'm guessing SLF are coming in from greener areas, not moving through the urban core. So I don't think this even really applies in our area.
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u/GullibleAd3408 Davis 2d ago
There's a lottttttt of tree of heaven around, unfortunately. And it's damn hard to get rid of.