To the apple orchard we go to pick apples. Correction: to pick lanternflies off our clothes.
We took a trip to the apple orchard in Crozet on Sunday with the goal of picking apples. But it’s between seasons now, so no apple picking.1 Instead, we picked sunflowers and pumpkins. Invasive spotted lanternflies were everywhere. One flew and landed on my shorts while another went up my shorts. Not joking. Should’ve worn pants, but it was hot. Unusually hot for late September.
Another flew onto my shirt. Another in my hair. I almost knocked myself out on that one. Didn’t realize what it was at first. Thought: shit, hornet! It was like that scene in Fight Club when Edward Norton or Brad Pitt, I can’t remember which one, starts punching themselves upside the head.2
I’ve seen a handful of spotted lanternflies where I live, but nothing on this scale. I can’t imagine the damage they are inflicting on this one orchard over the course of the year, much less other orchards across the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has this to say about how lanternflies damage orchards and other native habitats. When lanternflies feed, they pierce through the tree’s bark to access its sap. In turn, this:
- Weakens trees
- Reduces fruit yields
- Promotes a fungus known as sooty mold which disrupts photosynthesis
The ecological impact spirals past the tree damage by impacting the food sources and habitat of native wildlife. This is a different issue altogether, but it goes to the root of how an invasive species can create ecological havoc in little to no time at all.
Consider the American chestnut that once made up 50% of the mountain forests in the United States 120 years ago. Visit Shenandoah National Park and you’ll see the devastation of a tree species that once thrived in this country. An invasive fungus brought over from Asia has wiped out billions of American chestnuts in the U.S.
Considered functionally extinct, you can see the death and destruction of American chestnuts trying to rise from the ground all around you when you hike in Shenandoah. It was once one of the most beneficial trees to an array of wildlife from deer and turkey to bears, hogs, and raccoons. The chestnut’s flowers provided nectar for butterflies and moths. Blue jays and the now extinct passenger pigeon fed on the nuts as well as other birds including grouse.
Nicknamed the redwoods of the east, the trees once reaching 100 feet in height now die out after two years when blight takes over.
The lanternflies were so bad at the orchard the musician playing on site stopped mid-song to swat a handful away.
I couldn’t imagine playing guitar with all those things flying about my face. I would’ve smashed my guitar on stage like a giant flyswatter going after them. Imagine Kurt Cobain becoming a pest control guy instead of the frontman for Nirvana.
I won’t name the particular orchard we went to. I don’t want to give them any bad press. But what I’ll say is, as a family, we’ve visited this orchard at least a dozen times over the years and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Native to parts of China and Vietnam, the spotted lanternfly was first discovered in Virginia in 2018. But this is the first year I recall ever seeing one where I live. And while it’s been said they have no natural predators, that appears to be largely a myth.
Chickens will eat them. Bats have been spotted eating the spotted boogers. The cardinal, the state bird of Virginia, doesn’t mind chowing down on them. Good job, cardinal. Way to take one for the Commonwealth team. Cat birds eat them. Apparently stink bugs are good for something now. They’ll eat the damn things. Assassin bugs make milkshakes of lanternflies. The good old praying mantis bows its head and then gets genuinely brutal with the things by biting off their heads.
Yet there’s so many of them. How many babies do these things have?
When we were leaving, as I was opening the trunk of our car to place inside the pumpkins and sunflowers we picked, a lanternfly flew in. Not realizing my daughter was walking up to the car behind me, I swiped the lanternfly away and it flew into her hair.
Oops.
On the bright side, at least the lanternfly didn’t hitch a ride with us back home and fly up on me while I was driving. I told you about the time a hornet flew into my pants’ lap while I was entering the big town of Phenix once, right? Almost took me out of existence. That could’ve been me at that embankment to the right of my former elementary school.
I’m curious if the lanternflies have made their way down to rural Virginia where I grew up. This map from Virginia Tech’s Department of Entomology says yes. Ever seen one?
Footnotes3
- We learned this at arrival. In all honesty, I wasn’t along for the ride for the sole purpose of picking apples. I went to pick up a box of apple doughnuts. A dozen actually. Okay, two dozen apple doughnuts. And a jar of peach butter jam. And some hot sauce made from pickles. And an apple slushy. ↩︎
- Technically the same person, just a different personality. ↩︎
- Because sometimes I fall down a rabbit hole. ↩︎