You keep spotted lanternflies away by pulling out what draws them in and by checking whatever might carry them onto your land. No spray on a shelf does this for you. The draw is tree-of-heaven, the host they favor over everything else, and the ride is your car, since egg masses sit on bumpers and wheel wells all winter. Handle both and the crowd on your property thins out. Ignore either one and you are just squashing bugs while more of them arrive.
"There is a tree-of-heaven behind your fence," a neighbor said to me in the peak summer of 2021. I checked the fence line that evening and the trunk was moving. Hundreds of them stacked shoulder to shoulder on one stem, sap running down the bark. They pick that tree over anything else in a yard, and that is where the local count builds before it spills onto everything nearby.
People want a bottle they can spray along a property line. It does not exist yet. Utah State University Extension lists lavender oil as a possible repellent. The word possible matters there. Nothing on that list is a tested product. The same page puts spearmint oil and methanol extract on the attractant side. Buy the wrong oil and you may pull in more of them than you had before. Save the money and put it toward the two things below.
Tree of heaven removal is the lever with the longest payoff, and it is also the one most people get wrong. Cut the trunk on its own and the root fragments answer back with a thicket of new sprouts, so you trade one tree for a dozen. Herbicide has to be part of the job, and the right product and the right month depend on where you live. Call your county extension office and follow the treatment they publish for your state.
Eggs are the other half of the work. You can find them on any outdoor surface from September through June, and that list runs well past tree bark. Bricks, stones, fences, grills, outdoor equipment and vehicles all get used. Scrape what you turn up on a slow walk around the yard, and take that walk more than once, because a mass laid in November is still sitting there in April if nobody touched it.
- Yard: Find any tree-of-heaven on or next to your property and get extension guidance before you cut anything.
- Fall through spring: Scrape egg masses off bark, stone, fences, grills and outdoor equipment from September through June.
- Parking: Inside a quarantine zone, park 15 feet (4.6 m) away from trees.
- Before you drive: Look over the doors, sides, bumpers, wheel wells, grill and roof.
- Check the wiper blades and the panel below the windshield last, since those two spots hold hitchhikers the longest.
Your car is how they reach a town that does not have them yet. They hold on at highway speed. Every mobile stage stayed stuck to a test vehicle at wind speeds up to 62 mph (100 km/h). The wiper blades and the panel below the windshield held them longest. So inside a quarantine zone, park 15 feet (4.6 m) away from trees and give the car a look before you pull out. Kill the ones you find on it.
Spotted lanternfly prevention is a habit rather than a purchase. This insect is likely here to stay, so the goal is to keep spotted lanternflies away from your own trees and to avoid seeding a new area. Work on the fungus Beauveria bassiana and on two parasitic wasps is under way, though none of it is sitting on a shelf for you today. The scraper and the parking habit are what work now.
Read the full article: Spotted Lanternfly: What It Actually Damages
