Often in the morning when I wake up, ideas come to me. This was one of them—a hard paint roller to crush Spotted Lanternfly egg casings.
- The roller is four inches long with a four-inch piece of copper tubing forced over the 3/4-inch diameter plastic roller.
- Add an extension handle from a broom or purchase an extension at any hardware store. The brand name of this roller is Purdy, and it is not the typical roller that one slides the standard paint cover over. It is, as you can see, about the diameter of one’s finger.
Scramble those juicy eggs before they hatch in the spring to destroy our trees.
—Richard Boshart
Richard is a member of the Friends of the Woods and Wetlands at Landis Homes, a retirement community in Lititz, Pa.
Additional information:
Here’s what the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture suggests:
Kill eggs October through May by scraping them off of surfaces, “double bag them and throw them in the garbage,” or scrape the eggs directly into a Ziploc bag of alcohol or hand sanitizer to kill them.
Remove Spotted Lanternfly hosts, the tree Ailanthus altissima (Chinese sumac or tree of heaven), saving only male trees to use as “trap” trees, since the spotted lanternfly requires a meal from this tree before laying eggs.Remaining male “trap” trees should be wrapped with sticky bands starting in early spring to catch any nymphs.