The long stalemated national stink bug battle has finally turned a corner.
The decade-old struggle to find a killer of the accidentally imported Asian bug has uncovered two effective weapons that, with the help of bad weather, have cut the population of the especially smelly and destructive brown marmorated stink bug.
“It was definitely exhausting and a bit of a battle, but we’ve made it to the other side,” said Tracy Leskey, the USDA entomology research leader in the war that has now gone international.
“It was no joke. It was just overwhelming,” she told Secrets.
Leskey, who is headquartered at the Agriculture Department’s Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia, said that while some Midwest states such as Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana are seeing growing populations of the bugs, most are witnessing declining populations.
We’re stopping stink bugs in their tracks! Research Entomologists Rob Morrison & Tracy Leskey are finding ways to control brown marmorated stink bugs in commercial apple orchards while reducing insecticide use by 97%. https://t.co/CxcyiXfFUw pic.twitter.com/8Zehs3GCSd
— USDA-ARS (@USDA_ARS) December 7, 2018
That is due largely to the introduction of a natural foe of the brown marmorated stink bug and a new “attract and kill” lure and pesticide system that uses the bug’s own scent to kill it.
The government rallied researchers from around the country some 10 years ago when the stink bug exploded on the East Coast. The insects infested orchards and vineyards, damaging fruit with bruising punctures, and then moved to homes, barns, cars, and even lawn mower engines to overwinter.
People in more rural areas complained of having thousands of the brown bugs covering their homes. Worse, when they neared or killed them, the insects emitted a foul squirt of oil that smells like cilantro.
This week, when the autumnal equinox occurs, is the peak week for movement to hibernation for the stink bug.
#BMSB overwintering in your home? Here’s why your house may provide the perfect welcome mat! @morrisonlabUSDA https://t.co/1XSS4fuHMk
— Tracy Leskey (@BMSBresearch) November 6, 2018
Leskey credited a natural enemy, the so-called samurai wasp, also accidentally introduced from Asia, for helping to kill its natural foe.
But researchers have also found success in using the pheromone the stink bug uses to attract mates. Similar to Japanese beetle traps, they have used small lures scented with the pheromone to attract stink bugs to sheets covered in pesticides.
And, said Leskey, other insects are not attracted to the lure or sheets.
“The bugs poison themselves,” she said. “It is literally manipulating their behavior to intentionally poison themselves. It’s looking pretty good,” she added of the 2-year-old test.
While she is a long way from declaring victory, the war on the brown marmorated stink bug has served up lessons and patterns to follow in other fights, notably the new one against the spotted lanternfly.
“It really was a collaboration among scientists, among researchers and among growers to get to the point as quickly as possible where things are stable,” she said in our interview.
The lesson, she added, is to ”act quick and bring a team together. Having all those folks working together effectively is the key.”
