Beware the Lanternfly     

   What next?  

   They may find a vaccine for COVID-19, but there's no optimism, yet, for conquering the lanternfly.

   They found the first Asian lanternfly in 2014 in Eastern Pennsylvania. A Smithsonian writer says it is "ruinous and beautiful, the size of your thumb and a destroyer of worlds."

   It has spotted wings, usually silvery blue-gray, and a bright red-orange petticoat. They drain nutrients from plants or trees and excrete sugar water. 

   A lanternfly can kill a tree outright, or stress it for eventual death. Same for grapevines and fruit trees. Billion-dollar cash crops are threatened here and in other nations. There are concerns from Georgia to Tennessee to Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania.  

   The spread of various pests and pathogens could cost global agriculture $540 billion a year, for mitigation and repair of damage. 

   There's a world-wide battle being fought in silence. A short list of trees a lanternfly might feed upon: almonds, apples, apricots, cherries, maple, oak, pine, nectarines, peaches, plums, poplar, sycamore, walnut, willow and more.  

   The writer says "they'll lay waste to a whole sector of your economy, then lay eggs in your Christmas tree. They can be killed with pesticides, but you have to find them first. 

   Did we take your mind off the China virus for a few minutes?

          Jimmy