The topic today; Lycorma Delicatula, AKA The Spotted Lantern Fly. These little plant hoppers are native to China and Vietnam and were accidentally imported to the US back in 2013 or so. They were first spotted in Pennsylvania in September of 2014 They are destructive and invasive. Now, found in the Mid Atlantic and Mid Western parts of the United States as well as other areas, they are devastating to native flora. In upstate NY, the grape industry is being especially hard hit.
So, what does this have to do with broadcasting? Great question. Recently, on one of the AM sites we take care of, I noticed several VSWR trips during the late afternoon. Coincidentally, a landscaping company came and chopped all the vegetation around the tower base. That is when I saw it. These little things were crawling up to the ball gap and getting zapped.
The best and only course of action when finding these things is to terminate their existence with extreme prejudice. I have a few grape vines around the homestead and I found that making them hop off an land in the grass is the easiest way to kill them. For some reason, the grass tends to make it difficult for them to hop away. The female bugs are larger, so I tend to concentrate on those first.
They have few natural predators in the US, although that seems to be slowly changing. There are a couple of fungi that seem to kill them and birds such as Robins are discovering them. Eventually, they will find their place in the food chain and become less of an issue. Hopefully, that happens sooner rather than later.
Speaking of invasive species, do you have problems with invasive plants at transmitter sites? Our area seems to be losing a battle against Ailanthus altissima (Tree of Heaven, Stinking Tree, or Ghetto Palm), which is one of the primary hosts of the spotted lantern fly.
Once they get a toehold, they’re a nightmare to get rid of as they sucker and spread all over the property. I have to imagine that taking care of the yard of a transmitter site is just another one of the things on the list and is easy to forget and ignore until you’ve got a forest on your hands.