Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome
The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience. Listener discretion Welcome
to the Urban Forestry Radio Show here on Reality Radio 101. In this radio show and podcast, we learn about fruit trees, permaculture, aboriculture, and so much more. So if you love trees, and especially fruit trees, Or if you're interested in living a more sustainable life, then this is the place for you.
I'm your host, Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care training website, OrchardPeople. com. Thanks for tuning in.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. To contact Susan live right now, send her an email instudio101@gmail.com.
[00:02:00] Billy Joel's Allentown and the Stink Bug Invasion
We're going to start our show today by taking a trip back to the 1980s. When singer songwriter Billy Joel was at the top of his game, and he released his song, Allentown, about the decline of the steel industry in America. Steel factories were closing, and steel workers were losing their jobs. The song shed light on the challenges the workers faced.
And at the same time, it made Allentown, a city in Pennsylvania, quite famous. So now let's fast forward 20 or so years to 2001. And Allentown is in the news again, but this time, it's because of an insect. An agricultural pest from Asia had somehow found its way to Pennsylvania. The insect, called the brown marmorated stink bug, feeds on apples, peaches, figs, mulberries, citrus fruits.
and other crops. it didn't take long for these tough little bugs to spread. And by 2010, they wrecked havoc on orchards and crops in various parts of the United States. And the really bad news is that brown marmorated stink bugs are still here and they're on the move and they may soon arrive to a fruit tree near you.
So what can we do about it?
[00:03:18] Meet the Expert: Tracy Leskey
I've invited Tracy Leskey to the studio today to find out. She's an entomologist and, by the way, an optimist, as you will discover in this interview today. She's also the director of the Appalachian Fruit Research Station at Kearneysville. West Virginia. Her research is focused on the development of behaviorally based management tools for invasive and native pests of fruit crops.
But before we start chatting, I would love to hear your stories and your questions during the show. You can email those questions and stories to instudio101 at gmail. com. And do remember to include your first name and the city you're writing from. So tell us, have you seen these bugs in your fruit trees?
And what have you done about it? InStudio101 at gmail. com is the email. So now to Tracy Leskey. Thanks for coming on the show today. Thank you, Susan, for the invitation. Oh, I'm so glad to have you here. And hopefully you will shed some light on these mysterious bugs. Oh my goodness.
[00:04:25] The Stink Bug's Journey to North America
So the story starts in Allentown.
Can you tell me a little bit about that discovery? What was happening around then? Sure. brown marmorated stink bug, as you've already mentioned, is a species that is not native to North America. It's native to Asian countries, including China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. This insect is an Excellent hitchhiker, and we'll probably get to that in a little while, but at some point in the mid to late 1990s, homeowners in and around the Allentown region of Pennsylvania were, seeing some interesting invaders in the fall to their homes, and in fact, these were brown marmorated stink bugs.
The issue was, is that they weren't properly identified until 2001 when Karen Bernhardt, who was with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Pennsylvania, collected some of these specimens from a homeowner. And she ended up sending them to a taxonomist, Rick Hoback at Cornell, and he identified them as brown marmorated stink bugs.
So this was the first official record of a population in North America. So how on earth would they have gotten there? How did they get to these people's homes? So one of the interesting things about brown marmorated stink bug is that they are excellent hitchhikers as adults. And what that means is that they can end up being concealed and hidden from view and take a journey to somewhere else.
And this is related to what we as entomologists refer to as their overwintering behavior, which is essentially like hibernation for insects. So when these insects Hibernate more or less. they crawl into cracks and crevices and hunker down and wait for spring. And if these cracks or crevices happens to be in some sort of shipment of goods or perhaps in your suitcase or who knows, this is how Often these bugs have been transported to new locations.
Wow. So how quickly would they spread? So let's say, what a thought. Let's say it's in your suitcase. You've gone on holiday to, I don't know, China or whatever. You brought back these little hitchhiking bugs. so let's say you have one bug or two bugs. What happens then? How quickly would they spread? if you found one or two bugs, I'd tell you to kill them first.
No mercy. But, it's a good question. They have a pretty good, reproductive capacity. That's what we say in terms of, how quickly can a population build up based on the reproductive efforts of a female. A single female can lay up to 28 eggs at a time. in an egg mass, and she can lay up to 400 over her lifetime.
So you can imagine if, just a portion of those eggs survive to adulthood and then reproduce, you can see that a population could build rather quickly. Wow.
[00:07:14] Impact on Agriculture and Homeowners
So is that what happened? how quickly did this problem spread? You said it started in the late 90s. It was, discovered 2001.
And then what happens? what happened after that was, it was a slow spread, and it was a slow buildup for a number of years. in 2003, I found the first specimen officially outside Pennsylvania in Maryland, just south of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in central Maryland in a town called Hagerstown.
there was some, also some, official detections in New Jersey, and then it continued to spread through what we refer to as the Mid Atlantic here in the United States into Virginia, West Virginia, parts of, Delaware, into upstate, or I should say downstate New York. the populations continued to build, over a number of years.
it really began to build quickly back in 2008, 2009. And in 2010, throughout the region, we really experienced what we refer to as an outbreak population. So what did that look like? And, especially if you're growing fruit trees. Yeah, it looked, when we first began to detect problems in fruit trees from Brown Marmorated Stinkbug in say 2008 2009, the issues were confined really to the late season, where just before harvest, and this is really painful if you can imagine your fruit just about ready to, We were seeing large numbers of adults invading the orchards in the fall and feeding on the fruit.
And this was causing, for some of our local growers, up to 10 percent loss, even back then. But in 2010, we saw the bugs invading earlier, much earlier. Actually, just after the fruit had formed. Just after petal fall, essentially, in these orchards. And that early season feeding really set up our growers for significant losses, where, for our peach growers, many growers lost their entire crops, most lost half of their crop, and then it just went on from there.
apples incurred about 37 million in losses in 2010, just locally. That's terrible. was the fruit not salvageable at all? what do these brown marmorated stink bugs do to the fruit? Yeah, they are, they are a typical stink bug species in that their mouth parts are essentially a straw and they insert that straw into the fruit tissue and they inject some salivary enzymes that essentially helps break down that tissue and suck out the juice and so what they leave behind is this dry, quirky tissue, beneath the surface of the skin as well as discolored, disparate.
Depressions on the surface. Now, for peaches, because the feeding began so early, essentially, once you peeled that fruit, the entire fruit was riddled with these deep pockets of dead cummy tissue. And, the entire fruit was essentially unsalvable. It was just a complete loss. For, apple growers, some of the fruit could be redirected to, from a fresh market to a juice market.
But, they're getting a sense on the dollar in terms of the value. In, essence, they're losing over 90 percent of the value of that fruit that would have normally gone into fresh market. So it was very devastating. I think that was a really scary time. I remember talking to somebody, I don't know if it was in 2010, a few years later, and there was this look of shock on her face.
It's Oh my gosh, what do we do with these bugs? Like, how did you get involved? And what was your first response? you're talking about it in a very detached way now, but was it something that scared you then? Oh, yeah. for me, the summer of 2010, I'd never want to repeat, because each week I was visiting with growers where we were doing some baseline experiments to monitor the size of the population to look at the damage and try to assist them.
And each week they were incurring more and more injury to their fruit. And as the season went on, it just became worse and worse. And For me, the concern was could this bug, this invasive bug, put them out of business because, if they don't have fruit to harvest, they don't have an income.
and yeah, it was, so it was, a very, intense time and really it was one that I think really pulled together the entire community in a way, scientific, regulatory, the grower community, industry to really work together towards solutions for this bug. Interesting.
[00:11:57] Listener Questions and Expert Answers: Stink Bug "IPM"
I've got an email from Denise. Now let's see, where's Denise from? She doesn't say. And she, really interesting, she says, Will birds help us and eat them? Yeah, Denise, birds do eat them. In fact, what we've seen over time, it seems like as more bird species begin to recognize this insect as a good meal, we have seen a number of bird species consuming them.
for example, even in my home, when these bugs start moving out of their overwintering sites where they're hibernating in the spring, we see everything from grackles to bluebirds feeding on them. We had an amateur ornithologist tell us that every other meal, Actually, bluebirds were, feeding to their young.
Their offspring in the nest were brown marmorated stink bugs. So there are, birds that eat them, but certainly back in 2010, the populations were so overwhelming that it wouldn't have, it may have, made a dent, but there had to be other, options as well to really get that. that population down.
Interesting. Yeah. Denise says she is from Pennsylvania, actually. Oh, And it's interesting to Denise, and to the listeners as well. I always really encourage people to put, bird boxes or bird houses in their orchards. who, why, who would say no to a free, pest control eating team, right?
They're working on your behalf and they're beautiful. And so why not? But that was a great question, actually. Yeah. Tracy, you talked to me about a little bit when we talked about previously about how this affected some homeowners. So can you tell me a little bit about what was the most extreme situations that you saw?
So this didn't just, wreak havoc in orchards, the people's lives and homes were affected. Absolutely. it is an insect that we say really bridges the agro urban interface where, you know, throughout the growing season, it's an agricultural pest in a lot of crops, but then in the fall, when it moves to potential overwintering sites to hibernate, it becomes a nuisance pest for homeowners and businesses.
And in the fall, when the bug, starts looking for potential overwintering sites, they begin, moving and flying in large numbers, usually just around the fall equinox. And thereafter, we see them moving toward homes, in fact, is one of the places that we often find them overwintering. And it begins with large numbers A lighting and landing on the surfaces of people's homes, and then ultimately they settle within the cracks and crevices of homes, places that are cool, tight and dry, maybe under your siding, around a window frame, they get into a gable end vent and overwinter beneath the insulation in your attic, whatever.
but the problem is, Okay, so now you have non paying residents in your home and would you know, that they're there? Are they hiding away? Would there be any often quite concealed until let's say you'd make a trip up to your attic, in the fall, perhaps to get holiday decorations and you pull out a box of holiday decorations in there between the layers of paper that you've put in there to.
protect your ornaments are also layers of brown marmorated. And these are fully adult ones and maybe describe them for us. What do they look like? stink bugs are normally referred to as shield bugs. And so these are large insects and they have striped antennae. They have striped legs. They have a shield shaped, structure on their back that covers sort of their, what we call their.
So they're big, and they're bigger than all, they're pretty big. They're bigger than most of our native species. So when you see them, you know they're much bigger than some of our other fall invaders, like we think about Asian ladybird beetles or box elder bugs. Now, you told us a story about one chap Who had, do you want to tell that story?
Sure, I can talk about him. this is a homeowner who had emailed me, about the situation in his home and in his home he lived in an area, that was nestled between some mountain ranges and a lot of agricultural production. And so In the sort of winter of 2011, following the fall of 2010, he was literally having thousands of brown marmorated stink bugs.
This is the other issue. Some of them become active during the winter and they invade people's living space. So in his case, he was getting thousands of them entering his living space. And he began by cleaning them up with vacuum cleaners. And so he had a vacuum cleaner, in fact, on each floor of his home.
And what he started to do was to actually take them out. data. And so he began by vacuuming each day and counting the number that he vacuumed up. And by the time he had written his email to me, he had destroyed, and these are, this is a quote from him. He had destroyed 12, 000 stink bugs in his home in something like 45 days.
Stink bugs on your sink. Stink bugs on your toothbrush. Exactly. That sounds horrible. Sitting on your toothbrush, sitting in your coffee cup, ending up in your cereal box, Ugh. None of the places you want them to be. by the time he had gotten to spring, he had removed 26, 000 stink bugs from his home.
Wow. and that's a tremendous burden for homeowners to deal with. I hope he had a sense of humor. He, he actually, he does. He's actually a biologist, and he just recently retired and so he was a great, actually ended up being a great collaborator on this project and he published that data in a peer reviewed referee journal.
Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. Okay, we have a question from Bill in Chilliwack. Good question, actually. Why are they called stink bugs? That's a great question. they are referred to as stink bugs because essentially both the nymphs, which are the immature stage, and the adults have glands in their thorax that release what we refer to as defensive compounds.
And so these are, some people would say foul smelling, odors that could potentially, Repel or at least, startle potential predators. stink bugs in general, that's, why they're called. They do release essentially stinky compounds. Brown marmorated is a bit of a different smell than other stink bugs.
Native stink bugs, they have, actually, they share a couple of volatiles with the same volatiles, that are released by cilantro. So some people have actually become unable to eat cilantro anymore if they've been invaded by large numbers of brown marmorated stink bugs. Oh, my goodness. I like the smell of cilantro, but yeah, that would turn me off.
That would definitely Yeah, it hasn't me, and I've lived with these bugs for a long time now. Oh, my goodness. okay. George writes, Hi, Susan. Great show. George here from Maryland. And this is such a good question. Do stink bugs bite people? they don't have biting mouth parts like we would typically think of that could give someone a bite, per se.
However, there have been recorded Episodes where I would say it's they've been described as accidental probing where you know this stink bug is trying to discover is this something I can eat and then it actually turns out to be something not that they may not want to eat so there have been a few reports of somebody being probed marmorated stink bug but as far as a defensive gesture, not so much.
They're vegetarian. Oh, they're vegetarians. Okay. They don't like our human meat. That's good. no. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. You know what, Tracy?
[00:19:51] Break and Sponsor Messages
Let's, we're going to take a few minutes and we're going to listen to some words from our sponsors. But after that, I want to talk to you about how we both as homeowners.
And as growers can keep an eye on the spread of these pests, how we can stop them as well from destroying our harvests. So you okay holding the line for a minute? Absolutely. Great. You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner from the Fruit Tree Care Training website, OrchardPeople.
com. We'll be back after this short break.
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The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome back to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101. To get on board, send us an email right now instudio101@gmail.com.
And now right back to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner. You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner from the Fruit Tree Care Training website, orchardpeople. com.
[00:23:32] Controlling the Spread of Stink Bugs
In today's program, I'm chatting with entomologist Tracy Leskey about clamping down on an insect pest that can turn the fruit on your beautiful fruit tree into an ugly, quirky looking, dried out mess.
I'm talking about brown marmorated stink bugs, which somehow hitched a hitchhike to North America from Asia. And in this part of the show, we're going to explore solutions. How can we control the spread of these insects? How can we protect our fruit trees and other crops? But before we delve back into the topic, I would love to hear from you.
Have you seen brown marmorated stink bugs in your community? What experiences have you had? Send an email to instudio101 at gmail. com with your question or your comment. And remember to mention your first name and location. That's instudio101 at gmail. com. So Tracy, let's talk a little bit about protecting fruit trees from brown marmorated stink bugs.
Now here in Ontario, they've only just started appearing. Is it possible for us to catch them and stop them before they spread? we can capture some, but it's going to be very difficult to get to what we would refer to as eradication, which is essentially, removing them from the, ecosystem and such that, you would have no more.
And the reason for that is, is that these bugs have been recorded to feed on over 170 host plants. And these host plants are not just fruit trees like peaches and apples and pears, but also on many of our, cultivated vegetable crops like, tomatoes, peppers, and beans, but also many wild host plants.
And that's often where the populations build up on things like tree of heaven or paulownia. which are obviously both Asian species, but also some of our native species, such as box elder. So it's really hard to be able to target populations when you're dealing with what we refer to as really a landscape level pest.
That's pretty serious. like for instance, if in our little orchard and Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard here in Toronto, if we, I hope we don't, but if we see one or two and we squish them. is it? That's good. Yeah, that's good. are they crunchy when you squish them? Hopefully not.
they're crunchier as their exoskeleton hardens. When they first molt to the adult stage, we call them squishy, because they are a bit squishy, but then they become a bit more crunchy for sure. Okay, let's start with that. let's say, we'll start with the, first step. Let's say we see them.
What would we see? You, described the bugs, or what are the different ways that we might see them on our fruit trees, for instance? Yeah, you'll probably, a couple of ways. You'll probably be able to see, first of all, the adults, and if you see them in fruit trees, they may be feeding on the fruit itself, and you may see them there on the side of the fruit with their mouth parts inserted.
You may find the egg stage. The eggs are laid on the undersides of leaves, and so they will reproduce in, Orchard trees. And so on the underside of trees, if you find an egg mass, usually these are round eggs. And when they're first laid, they're minty green, but then they turn white and they will have a sort of a triangular structure on the top, which is referred to as an egg burster.
And those egg bursters essentially help them get out as nymphs. But if you find something like that, those are the nymphs. And then You know, or sorry, the eggs. And then those nymphs will hatch out. And eventually the first instar nymphs will feed on the surface of the egg, acquiring some symbionts that their mother left behind, like vitamins.
And then off they go to feed on the fruit. I don't know if anybody else listening to the show is like me. I, when I do see things on my fruit trees, sometimes they think, Oh, but what if it's a beneficial insect? I don't want to randomly start squishing things on my trees. Absolutely, and there is a good, beneficial that you may find.
they're not in huge numbers, but there's a beneficial stink bug known as Spined Soldier Bug that you may see out there, and it looks similar to Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, although its shoulders are very pointy. That's where it gets the name, Spined Soldier. but its eggs are quite different.
They're golden, in color. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between that and brown marmorated. So basically we're not supposed to go randomly squishing everything we see on our trees. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But it just goes to show how much learning is involved, really learning to recognize things.
It does. I have a really cute email from Irene. I'm not sure where Irene is from, but she says, Hi. I'm freaking out here! Ugh! How long do they live? That's a good question. the adults that overwinter are long lived because if you think about it they were born in the summer of one year.
They overwinter for, a number of months, essentially six months, and then they can come out and reproduce. So some of these bugs could live maybe nine, ten months. if they're not preyed upon by something or, I think Irene is just hoping they're going to die out as a species and then we'll be left alone.
I think we all want that. as an invasive that doesn't really belong here. Yeah, it makes us all feel so unkind to, to say that. But, it's actually saying that. there is probably somewhere where they are just happily part of the ecosystem in balance. I guess there is no, no creature on earth that really doesn't belong anywhere, Exactly. the brown marmorated stink bug evolved in Asia. It has natural enemies that evolved with it in Asia. And, it's like how we think about our stink bug species here. It's a stink bug, but we don't really it doesn't call a lot of attention to itself because it's not that numerous.
It's in balance with other parts of the ecosystem. Exactly. Oh, Irene says she's from Ohio. Oh, they've been recently invaded in the last few years. Oh, here's a question from Burton from Winnipeg. Are stink bugs affecting Canadian growers yet, as far as As far as I know, I don't think we've had reports from any of the provinces about, agricultural injury, but certainly, there are populations that are being monitored, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia.
there are populations that are there, but so far, as far as I'm aware, And this last field season, they haven't, affected agriculture. Now, nuisance problems, yes, there have been homeowner problems from actually close to Toronto and Hamilton. Yeah, I know. I've read about that.
Scary. That's right near me. Okay, so let's take it a step further. Just if we can recognize them and squish them, that's awesome. Great first step. But now you're working with orchardists, both organic and non organic, I understand that, have entire orchards, like how are they dealing with this?
And when we first were invaded by this population, and as I mentioned earlier, we had growers that lost almost their entire crop. So the only thing growers could do at that time was to spray insecticides. That was the only tool we had. Now, all of our growers, and I think growers really are just wonderful stewards of the land anyway, because they appreciate.
Sort of that agro ecosystem approach. But, for a grower, they had to make choices and they had to spray materials that were what we call broad spectrum, which means, they're not particularly targeted, but they did kill brown marmorated stink bug. Brown marmorated stink bug is pretty formidable.
It's hard to kill. they made that choice and they sprayed those insecticides. That wasn't the long term solution, and we know that's not the long term solution in terms of what we're talking about conventional agriculture. The next approach is really to try to reduce the use of insecticides in different ways and develop what I do, which are behaviorally based management tools, to try to bring as much balance to the agroecosystem as we can.
So what are these tools that you're talking about? some of the first that we developed, for example, were monitoring traps, traps that we could use to detect the presence, the abundance, and seasonal activity of brown marmorated stink bug so a grower would know if they did need to spray an insecticide because the problem with scouting, which I'm sure, as you were mentioning, Susan, if you're going out squishing, Stink bugs, you're looking for them.
And we could go out during the day and look for stink bugs, but unfortunately a lot of activity is at night as well. They'll feed at night. we needed something that we could use to essentially, detect their presence night and day, use that information, and then develop what we refer to as thresholds.
In other words, if there's a density or number of insects out there that require intervention. So that was the first thing that we did.
[00:32:35] Innovative Trapping Methods
And what is that, a sticky trap? What would that look like? the initial trap looked a, it's a large black pyramid trap. It's, essentially a, two panel trap that fits together that's shaped like a pyramid.
And it is a trunk mimicking stimulus, a tree trunk mimicking stimulus. It looks like a tree trunk for a foraging stink bug. They climb up, they have a natural tendency to climb up, and then they're captured in a collection jar at the top. And so we could look in that jar and collect the stink bugs. And that jar was actually baited with the pheromone of brown marmorated stink bug, which we identified a few years ago.
So then that was the first step. Okay, first step. You know that they're there, or you know when they're there. What's the next step?
[00:33:19] Reducing Insecticide Use
the next step is, okay, so as I mentioned, then we may apply insecticides, but how can we reduce those insecticides? Do we need to apply them to the entire orchard?
What we're finding is, because this Bug is often building up on border row trees outside the orchard, some of these wild hosts and invading from the perimeter. We can just treat the perimeter of the orchard. In other words, you just spray the border of the orchard and leave the center intact and so that allows your natural enemies.
to flourish and it reduces the overall insecticide inputs into the system. So that's a border spray approach. That's fantastic because it means that if you have 10, 000 trees, you're not even spraying all 10, 000 trees. You're spraying just the rows on the outside. You're spraying usually, much less than 10 percent of the orchard is actually sprayed with an insecticide or brown marmorated stink bug.
So that was one approach. The other is what we refer to as attract and kill. Where you take that same border approach, but then you only take certain select trees that we take that pheromone that we've identified, bait those trees, allow the stink bugs to aggregate in those trees, and then just treat them only.
And so again, you're reducing the amount of insecticide that you're applying against this pest. Those are the kinds of things that we're trying to do to, manage this bug as sustainably as we. Interesting.
[00:34:44] Organic Gardening Solutions
In a minute, I want to talk a little bit about, what organic gardeners can do, but first we've got a question from Juanita.
Let's see where she's from, North Carolina. So she says, Hi, are there any close species to the stink bug that look like them and do the same damage? There are some closely related species that do create similar kinds of damage, in fruit. We have a couple of native stink bug species, the, what is, one is referred to as brown stink bug, which is, the scientific name is Euschistus cervus, and they will also feed on fruit and damage fruit.
but they're a bit smaller and, obviously not as numerous. There's another species known as
There's actually a really good website where people can look at, stink bug species on stopbmsb. org and learn about lookalikes so they can differentiate the different species. Okay, so let's say that again. Stop the Stop Stopbmsb. org. Stopbmsb. org. That sounds great. We should all check that out. That is fantastic.
Thank you, Juanita. And so now let's go to organic growers, community growers, like even if we wanted to, we couldn't use the pesticides that you're talking about. yeah, so, the question is what would organic growers do? in the short term, I think that the big things that we've seen that organic growers can do are, one, if you're growing vegetables, there, and things like that, there are row covers and things that can provide that physical barrier on fruit trees.
I have a colleague who's done a bagging study with sort of the fruit bags that you would use are commonly used in Asia actually to protect fruit from insect damage. It works pretty well against brown marmorated as well. So it's almost like physical barriers to prevent the bug from getting to the fruit or the fruiting vegetable to feed on it.
Also, we were talking when we previously spoke about, kale and clay, which is a spray that organic growers use. And I was saying to you that, so something that I, we use in our orchard is called orchard socks. Now the orchard socks protect growing fruit from certain, many types of insect damage like, codling moth and stuff.
But I would think that these nasty little brown marmorated stink bugs would get their stingers through. But I've been told that some people spray on top with kale and clay. Now, what does the kale and clay do? Yeah, you're right. Exactly right, Susan. They can definitely penetrate that with their proboscis and get to the fruit.
So the kale and clay provides what we refer to as a physical deterrent. The bugs do not like to have that material on themselves because it is. like a desiccant. It dries them out a bit. It clogs their mouthparts. It clogs their trachea. So it is a good way to deter them from getting on the plant, getting on the fruit or getting on those socks.
So that's an option. Yeah. So that's another option. Juanita writes back again about the website that you mentioned. She says, no thanks. I'm not looking. I think she's a little gross. out by all of this, but that's okay. okay. So organic growers have some options too.
[00:38:13] Citizen Science and Reporting
also we were talking about homeowners and, is there an op, is there somebody you should call even if you don't see, or if you see these insects in your fruit trees, or if you see them in your house, do you report it to somebody?
is there somebody who can? It's important for them to know where these bugs are? Yeah, especially in regions where it's not been picked up yet, usually, at least in the U. S., we have the Extension Service that is monitoring for these potential invasives. I'm sure Canada has a similar kind of network in the provinces.
And so if you see something unusual, and it isn't something that's been there before, it's a very good idea to get in contact with these local officials, whether it's through an extension service or a local department of ag, a provincial department of ag and report it because actually that has. It's been really the first calling card left by brown marmorated stink bugs, knocking on the doors of homeowners and in fact it's been used not only in the U.
S. but also in Europe to track the spread where homeowners become citizen scientists and report brown marmorated stink bugs showing up. I love that. I love that idea. Citizen scientists, like we're all working together to, track this thing, whether it's berm, marmorated stink bugs or something else counting butterflies in our gardens.
I think it's just so wonderful to be active like that. so what we're going to do now, we're going to take a minute. We're going to hear some words from the wonderful sponsors that make this show possible. But also after the break, we were talking about butterflies. Listeners, you can win a copy of a really beautiful book I have right here on this desk.
It's called Gardening for Butterflies from the Xerces Society. So there's going to be an opportunity for the listeners to win. All you need to do is have access to email and you may win the book. So anyways, after the respite, Tracy and I will talk about the future when it comes to keeping brown marmorated stink bugs in line.
You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner from the Fruit Tree Care Training website, OrchardPeople. com. We'll be back in just a moment.
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Welcome back to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101. And now, right back to Susan. I'm Susan Poizner, and you're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show, a program where we learn about fruit trees, food forests, permaculture, and arboriculture, and lots more.
Thanks so much for tuning in. So in today's program, we've been talking about a bad bug. At least it's a bad bug if you find it destroying the fruit on your fruit trees. And that bad bug is the brown marmorated stink bug. Of course, not all bugs are bad for our trees and our gardens. In fact, most insects are beneficial to our gardens.
Now, here's an example of that. Butterflies. in today's program, I would like to run a little contest. Would you like to win a copy of a really beautiful book called Gardening for Butterflies from the Xerces Society? If so, this is what you need to do. Go to your computer and write an email right now to instudio101 at gmail dot com.
And the third person who emails We'll get a copy of this book for free. I'll send it to you in the post wherever you live. So get going now folks, write to instudio101 at gmail. com. And in a minute, we'll see who wins a copy of this book. So now back to my conversation with Tracy Leskey, director of the Appalachian Fruit Research Station at Kearns Newville, West Virginia.
[00:44:55] Future of Stink Bug Management
Tracy, we've talked about brown marmorated stink bugs. We've talked about their history and how they can damage our fruit trees. We've talked about how to protect our fruit trees. But here's my question. What is the future when it comes to these bugs? Are they going to continue spreading? Will they ever go away?
Yeah, so Susan, so one of the, that's, the question that we asked ourself from the very beginning when brown marmorated stink bug hit, how can we deal with this pest in the long term? And just like we talked about at the beginning, this bug has the potential to feed and reproduce on, A number of different host plants over a hundred and seventy, both wild and cultivated.
So we need a strategy that is going to work across all of these wild and cultivated host plants to reduce populations. And so it really comes down to our beneficials or our natural enemies, the predators and parasites and potentially, Even pathogens that can help reduce these populations of brown marmorated stink bug in areas where it's established Such that it becomes just like another stink bug species.
We don't really notice it anymore if you will Well, would it be this sounds crazy But would it be possible to go to China and find some of its enemies bring them over? or would that cause even more of a problem? what you're referring to is a concept known as classical biocontrol, where essentially there is foreign exploration.
We go to places where the pest is from to look for natural enemies that have evolved directly. With The pest, and in the case of brown marmorated stink bug, because our native natural enemies were not doing a good job at keeping the populations in check, classical became an option, and so there was foreign exploration in China, Japan, and Korea, and populations of parasites were brought back and put in quarantine where they had been, evaluated for potential release.
in other words, doing what we refer to as host specificity screening. Are these, Parasitoids, these small, wasps, specific to brown marmorated stink bug. Are they only going to attack brown marmorated stink bug? Because otherwise everything could go out of balance if they start attacking things that we want to keep.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. We want to make good decisions about bringing another organism into the environment. what about, there must, we have our native stink bugs. You've mentioned that. So who, what creatures keep them in line? Are there parasitoid insects that eat them that might develop a taste for brown marmorated stink bugs?
Yes, there are a range of different parasitoid species that do attack. In this case, it's really the egg stage of brown marmorated stink bugs. native stink bug species, because if you think about it, the eggs are immobile. They can't run away, so it's a really good target. And so what these parasitoids do is lay their eggs in the eggs of stink bugs.
These parasitoids hatch, the larvae hatch, and essentially they feed on the egg. Kill the egg. and so we do have a number of species of parasitoids that attack our native stink bugs, but unfortunately, through what we refer to as sentinel egg mass surveys, where we put out egg masses of brown marmorated stink bug to see if they're going to be attacked, we were getting very low parasitism rates, especially initially, four or 5%.
So not enough to keep a population in check. But over time that, we have seen, I think, some, positive signs, and particularly in some ecosystems. for example, in woody ornamental systems, some of the nurseries, we have seen higher rates of parasitism from particular species. And it comes back to the fact that each parasitoid has places that it likes to forage.
And so those are the places, that maybe, have similar kinds of habitats to brown marmorated stink bug they may be. be a little bit more likely to find brown marmorated stink bug eggs. So it sounds like the eggs are the vulnerable place. it sounds to me like these bugs are big and they're crunchy, so that protects them.
So I guess it would be hard to get the adults unless, as an earlier person wrote in, unless it's a bird eating them that can, chew, chow down on those guys, the big adults. Yeah. Yeah, sure. But there are some bigger generalist predators that we do see feeding on brown marmorated stink bug adults besides birds.
These include praying mantids. I've seen praying mantids sit on the sides of walls in the fall and just wait for the next brown marmorated stink bug to show up. Interesting. Or wheelbugs, which are you know, another sucking insect closely related to stink bugs. But in this case, they are predators and they suck the life out of brown marmorated.
Wow. What do you, what's left once they're gone, do they have is the shell left or? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little empty. They suck the life out of them. Oh boy. All the meaty. stuff.
[00:50:00] Listener Questions and Contest: When Stink Bugs Become Active in the Spring
We've got a question from Jessica in Ontario. So Jessica says, Hi Susan, what time do the brown marmorated stink bugs become active in the spring?
I. e. this is a good question. Are there early season crops, where fruit would be harvested before they could be affected by them? Good question. It is a good question. And Some of the crops that we haven't seen being highly affected, now, not so much fruit trees, for the most part, because they will feed on immature fruit as well.
for example, a peach is really vulnerable from the time the fruit is set until harvest. But, in the case of some other, fruit species, for example, strawberries, we've never seen a lot of, attack of strawberries, at least immature berries, whether it's because it's a tree or they just don't like the fruit, we don't know.
But yeah, there is a potential, and we do refer to that as an ecological escape, the, Pests activity and the plant phenology don't line up very well. Wow. okay. We've got, I love this. Michelle Rota. I love emails like this. Hi, Michelle writes from Albany, New York. Hi, Susan. No questions today.
But what a very informative show. Excellent information. Thank you so much, Michelle. I love getting emails like that. Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it? Yeah. So okay, we've got Tate. Tate wants to know, Did I win? Did I win? Ha! Only kidding. Great show. let's find out. Maybe Tate will win. Maybe not. We'll see.
Okay, we've got an email from Elise. And she says, even though your topic is grossing me out today, I absolutely love the great information. Thank you. That's wonderful. Do you know what? It's, I think the more that I work with fruit trees, the more I'm, trying to embrace, the parts of nature that we aren't really trained to embrace in our society.
and I guess you as an entomologist, you were brought up with being fascinated by bugs, right? Yeah, I was. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that. How come you don't get grossed out like some of us do? I think my mother was part of the reason, she, always took us on nature walks and pointed out insects.
And in fact, she encouraged me in this. And my first show and tell project in kindergarten was taking monarch butterfly caterpillars to school along with milkweed and demonstrating pupation to my class. So I think it was right there in the DNA from the very beginning that I would end up on this track.
Yeah. And and I think the other part is I really What we call applied ecology and problem solving. I like to help growers develop more sustainable systems. So it really drives me and my research program to strive for that. And the other thing that we, that you mentioned when we were talking before, because a lot of people who are listening to this show, we all are very committed to as much as possible growing things organically.
It's so important to us to care for this earth. But that was something that you said to me on the phone about conventional growers. And I have so much gratitude for conventional growers as well, because frankly, they provide a lot of the food that we too eat. But what is your perspective about conventional growers and using chemicals?
no grower wants to spray because they recognize that, first of all, it costs them money, but it also has an ecological cost. when growers use insecticides, they're using them as smartly as they can and trying to minimize the impact. They want to have a crop to harvest and so that we have food to eat, but they also want to try to have as much of a balance with nature.
Because every grower that I've ever worked with, it's so funny, I can remember during the brown marmorated stink bugs. bug outbreak, we're talking to a grower about the fact that, he just loves the good work that his green lace wings do in his orchards and it was going to kill him to just have to put on a material that would be very unfriendly to them.
So that's how I look at it, and that's how our growers look at it. They, want to do what's best for, The crop, but also as much as they can, what's best for the environment. Lovely.
[00:54:20] Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Okay, so let's take the big picture. We're coming towards the end of the show. Where is the brown, brown marmorated stink bug now?
where is it? Where has it already infiltrated and causing problems? And where does it look like it's going next? Yeah, there, there's the brown marmorated stink bug has been found throughout much of, the United States and, so we talked about some Canadian provinces, but it's also invaded parts of Europe, particularly in Italy, in Greece, in parts of Germany, France, in some of the former Eastern Bloc countries, and in particular places like Italy, as well as the Republic of Georgia have had some significant agricultural issues.
And so they are like where we were You know, six or seven years ago. the pest is also recently turned up in South America in Chile. There's a population that was just recently detected. it is still, able to invade new regions, but the other part of this that I'll just mention is the fact that it really threw us an interesting curveball just over two years ago where it's The Asian parasitoid that I mentioned actually showed up on its own, just like brown marmorated stink bug to North America.
recently, 2014, we picked it up in the mid Atlantic area. It's been found in a number of states here in the eastern U. S., as well as Washington and Oregon State. And so this is the parasitoid that was found. Potentially being considered for release because it does have a big impact in Asia. And so it showed up on its own and it is definitely affecting populations.
When this parasite gets to work, we see up to 80 percent of the eggs being parasitized, which is great. I can tell you our growers applauded. Oh, I bet. Standing ovation on that one. Yeah. What gratitude. yeah. So how are growers feeling now? The worst of it, it feels like is over. 2010 has come and gone.
How, do growers, how are they handling this, little mini epidemic at the moment? we know a lot more about its biology, its behavior and ecology. And so that informs their management programs very much. We have monitoring tools and we know that Really, biological control is the long term solution.
So they, I think growers in general, I'm sure you're the same, Susan. We're all optimists. that's why we grow, food. we would like to see things grow and come to fruition. they're, they all, made it across the bridge, I think, and are pretty optimistic about the future, but they're not turning their backs to this bug yet, because it still can be quite damaging if, one does.
Not. Exactly. let's have a look. Gary in the studio. Let's see who won the competition and I have a feeling. Gary, can we see? it's actually Elise. I think her last name is pronounced, Bu, Bulinay. Okay. Did she? I'll get that information. Yeah, that's no, no issue. It looks like Elise. It looks like that you Congratulations, Elyse.
You won. Yeah, you won. I'm not sure if she wanted to just send in a comment or if she wanted the book. Elyse, do you tell us if you want the book? Because if you do, you got it because you were the third person emailing in. And if not, we will give it to somebody else. But email us. Sure, I'm sure she wants it.
And also email us with your address so I can send it off to you. I'm so happy with all the participation today. I love hearing from everybody. and your feedback and your amazing questions and Tracy, I really love chatting with you on the show today. Thank you so much for coming to teach us all about brown marmorated stink bugs.
Thank you, Susan, and thank your listeners for the excellent questions. Yeah, awesome. I've got the best listeners. I got to tell you, such interesting people out there. it's been wonderful to meet you on the radio, Tracy, and goodbye for now, but hopefully you'll come back again one day. Thank you. Okay.
Great. That was Tracy Leske, director of the Appalachian Fruit Research Station at Kearnsneyville. I can't pronounce that very well, can I? Kearnsneyville, West Virginia. And her research is focused on the development of behaviorally based management tools for invasive and native pests of fruit crops. The Urban Forestry Radio Show is just about over for this month.
Did you enjoy it? I really hope you did. So if you did, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and you can find it at orchardpeople. com slash podcasts. You'll be able to listen back to this show or to listen to our other archive shows that cover all sorts of topics relating to fruit trees, food forests, permaculture, and arboriculture.
And of course, while you're visiting OrchardPeople. com, do sign up for my monthly newsletter. It's packed with great information about fruit trees and food forests and all sorts of good stuff. You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show. I'm Susan Poizner from the fruit tree care training website, OrchardPeople.
com. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I look forward to seeing everybody next month.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great topics, you can visit orchardpeople. com slash podcast. The show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month, and each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
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Thank you so much for tuning in. It's been wonderful to have you as a listener, and I hope to see you again next time.
Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.