Dish soap kills spotted lanternflies in a bucket, and it does nothing good on a leaf. That split is the reason dish soap spotted lanternflies advice sounds like two answers at once. A container of hot, soapy water is a real disposal step for eggs you have already scraped off a tree. A soap spray aimed at bark or foliage is a different thing. Vinegar and dish soap mixes have no testing behind them, they are not science based, and they can hurt people, pets and the plants you were trying to protect.
By Sunday afternoon the maple over the gravel parking pad where the car sits was bare, and every gray smear that had been on its bark sat in a bucket at my feet. I checked the trunk twice with a flashlight to be sure. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation tells you to scrape the masses into hot, soapy water, so that is what I carried out there. An old paint bucket, hot tap water, one squirt of soap. Each mass came off in a single pass and dropped straight in.
A bucket works because it holds everything in one spot. Whatever goes in is already off the tree, so the soap only ever touches the eggs, the water and your scraper. A spray does the reverse. It puts an untested mixture on leaves, bark, soil and every insect standing on them, and the drift carries onto plants you wanted to keep. Soap does not stay where you point it. In a yard, a home remedy behaves like any other pesticide, and spraying one around often does more harm than good.
Fill a wide container with hot water and a good squirt of dish soap, then hold it right under the mass while you scrape. A putty knife, a plastic card or the edge of an old gift card all do the job. Each mass runs about 1 inch (2.5 cm) long and holds 30 to 50 eggs, so one that misses the water and lands in the leaf litter can still hatch in spring. Work a single mass at a time. Work the whole mass loose, because the covering smears instead of popping off clean, and a partial job leaves live eggs behind on the tree. The soapy water trap under your hand takes care of the rest while you move along the trunk.
Skip the spray. The tested options cost you nothing but an afternoon, and scraping is the first of them. Sticky bands catch climbing nymphs on their way up, but a bare band also grabs birds and squirrels along with the beneficial insects you want in your yard. Cage the band behind a screen cover and that stops. Better yet, hang a circle trap instead. It funnels the bugs walking up the trunk into a container with no glue left exposed, and you can empty it into the same soapy bucket. If you do reach for an insecticide, pick the least toxic option on the shelf and never spray it while pollinators are active nearby.
Egg mass disposal ends in a sealed container, not on the ground under the tree. Put what you scraped into the soapy water, or into alcohol or hand sanitizer, then bag it for the trash. Smashing a mass flat and sealing it in sanitizer works the same way. Do this any time from September through June, as long as you get there before the May hatch. Every mass you catch takes dozens of insects out of next summer, and that beats anything a spray bottle will hand you.
Read the full article: Spotted Lanternfly: What It Actually Damages
