Farmers v. Stink Bugs: Wolf Convenes Purcellville Forum

Stink bugs aren’t just annoying and smelly. They’re expensive.

The stink bug injects a sucker into a fruit – apple, peach, corn – and feeds. It leaves the exterior spotted, and leaves corklike dried out pulp underneath. The fruit has lost up to 100 percent of its market value. The U.S. Apple Association in Vienna, Va., estimated 2010 crop damage at 10 to 20 percent and researchers predict damage at 25 percent or more in any one orchard.

Grape growers face the prospect of harvesting the bugs along with the cabernet and chardonnay and putting them through the crusher – and then the risk of stink bug aroma in what had been a fine wine. So while a nuisance to those living in suburbia, the bugs can be much more costly to fruit growers.

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) invites anyone who has a problem with the invasive pest that arrived from the Far East in Allentown, Pa., in 1996, to join him at a forum on stink bug infestation, April 18 from 7 – 9 p.m. in the Woodgrove High School auditorium (36811 Allder School Road, Purcellville).

“I am well aware of the devastating impact that this invasive species is having on all crops,” Wolf said. “I encourage all local apple and grape growers, farmers and nursery owners to attend and participate in this discussion.” Wolf points to a Georgia study that concluded the bug had caused $27 million dollars in crop losses in a single year.

Virginia Tech professor Christopher Bergh will discuss his application to the United States Department of Agriculture to allow emergency use of the pesticide dinotefuran on tree crops. The EPA approved its use on vegetables, grapes and cotton but not on tree fruits. If the USDA approves, the pesticide could be allowed by mid-August.

Dinotefuran is an active ingredient in Valent BioSciences Corp.’s Venom, and in Gowan Company’s Scorpion.

At a meeting earlier this year in Emmitsburg, Md., Bergh cautioned that even though Japan allows dinotefuran on tree fruits, no research has been published on its effectiveness.

Bergh is assaying the effectiveness of other pesticides as well, and told the Emmitsburg audience that five central and Northern Virginia orchards are cooperating in field-testing other applications.

USDA research entomologist Dr. Tracy Leskey, who works at the Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va., will discuss the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Working Group’s (www.northeastipm.org/work_bmsbmember.cfm) research into behaviorally based monitoring and strategies for controlling the insect in fruit trees. The group, with members from the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md., Virginia Tech, Penn State University, Rutgers University, Oregon State University and University of Maryland, is focusing on finding visual clues, including color and light, that might lure the smelly pest into a trap; on identifying the pheromone the bug emits that lets all its pals know it’s found a good place to snack; on evaluating the effectiveness of various insecticides; and on developing behaviorally based management strategies that include “attract and kill” and mass trapping.

USDA scientists are working with an Asian parasitic wasp that might predate the stink bug, but won’t be ready to release it for at least two years – they have to be sure it won’t turn into a worse pest than the one it was set on.

For updates on stink bug research, go to http://bmsbresearch.blogspot.com.