'Small infestation' of spotted lanternflies raises concerns from Patchogue to Riverhead

A spotted lanternfly landed on a table in Riverhead on Friday, just in time to be swatted during a panel session of the Long Island Farm Bureau.

Its appearance wasn't surprising. Bill Zalakar, the bureau's executive director, said the past month has seen a dramatic rise in reports of the pest, most notably in a swath from Patchogue to Calverton and Riverhead.

The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County called the recent onslaught a "small infestation." The insects can cause damage by consuming more than 70 types of plants, including grape vines.

But help may be on the way in the future, in the form of a small wasp that targets the lanternfly and could help control or eradicate it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture-developed control is due to be released and applied next year, said Dan Gilrein, an entomologist and a program director at the Cornell Extension.

At the Farm Bureau panel session on Schmitt’s Farm in Riverhead with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, one of the increasingly ubiquitous lanternflies landed on a table in front of Herb Strobel, a Center Moriches hay farmer and staff scientist for Cornell University’s Long Island Horticultural Research & Education Center in Baiting Hollow. Strobel crushed it immediately.

"As far as I’m concerned, they are well established here," said Strobel, who first saw the insect in Yaphank in 2024. "This is the first season where it’s been as bad as I’ve seen it" in Suffolk. He added, "This season will tell if they do a significant amount of damage."

In addition to the tree of heaven, where they tend to congregate, the spotted lanternfly clusters on willow and birch trees, walnut and certain maple trees, grape vines and fruit orchards, experts said. They’re not harmful to pets or humans, but they can be annoyance, particularly when they congregate on landscape plants and trees. The sticky sap resulting from their work can attract flies. Getting rid of them can be as easy as vacuuming them up with a shop vac.

The spotted lanternfly also has made its way into wine country on the North Fork, but one farmer said he wouldn’t yet describe it as an infestation worthy of an all-out assault.

"We’re definitely seeing them, we saw them last year also and we’re worried about an infestation, but so far I have yet to see an infestation," said Kareem Massoud, general manager of Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue.

The vineyard’s plan for now is not to use insecticide given the relatively low numbers, Massoud said. Lanternflies can make a mess of grape vines, sucking the life from the plants, and potentially attacking them across entire vineyards. Paumanok, which is farming more than 110 acres, including its Palmer Vineyards field, is ready but not yet convinced it’s time for all-out war.

But signs are the insect is heading that way.

"It’s real bad," said Zalakar, who said he’s gotten "quite a few calls" about the increase in the pest in recent weeks.

Zalakar said the state appears to be working on a comprehensive solution to the problem, but officials at the state Agriculture and Markets Department didn’t respond to Newsday requests for information Monday. The state Department of Environmental Conservation, which regulates pesticide use, referred spotted lanternfly inquiries to Ag & Markets.

"We’re seeing an awful lot of them in the central Suffolk to Riverhead area," Zalakar said of the lanternflies. "Our concern is the vineyard industry and that progress out to that area."

While Zalakar said the pest isn’t present in large numbers far out on the North and South forks, "give it another year or two, it will be heavy."

The problem, he said, is that there isn’t "a whole lot effective for treatment issues for this. They just ask pretty much for people to kill them the best you can."

But Gilrein said that if all the work goes as planned, the USDA’s biocontrol could be in place sometime next year. The control will use the natural predator, the dryinus wasp, a parasitic insect that targets lanternflies, he said.

He said areas to release the wasp "will be chosen carefully" so that it can provide the best advantage of control and be observed to make sure it’s working. A USDA spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

"It may take some time before it’s released and spread sufficiently to provide the control we need," Gilrein said. Until the wasp is applied and spreads, "It looks like we’ll have to live with this for a little while."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.