Stomp them

Lanternfly nymph. Photo by Colin Purrington

To the Editor,

Last month I was dismayed to see spotted lanternfly nymphs crawling all over my grape vines. We try to keep a pesticide- and herbicide-free yard because of our frog ponds, so I looked up natural remedies to get rid of the bugs. I tried vinegar — it only burned the leaves. I tried Dawn dish soap — it made lots of bubbles. I tried duct tape, but it was difficult to wrap around the tiny vines. So I relented and bought fly tape.

The next day, I checked on the pieces of tape and saw bird feathers stuck in them! I felt so foolish. Here I was growing grapes for the birds to eat, and now I was hurting them. The tape came off and I went back to dish detergent. It didn’t kill the lanternflies, but at least it slowed them down so I could squash them.

So now I wonder if the treatment isn’t worse than the disease. I learned you are supposed to regularly move the sticky tape on trees or you weaken the bark and risk harming the tree. The tape collects bees, wasps, dragonflies, daddy long legs, and other beneficial insects. I was horrified to learn that a hawk was caught by accident in 10-inch sticky flytrap paper here in Swarthmore.

So, if the treatment hurts the environment more than the disease, let’s go back to spray and stomp.

Marie Koethe
Swarthmore