They came from far away.\u00a0 They are armed with shields, and suits of armor.\u00a0 They are in our homes, and eating our food.\u00a0 They number in the millions.\u00a0 And they stink.<\/p>\n
For years they were largely ignored, until apple farmers began noticing damage to their crops.\u00a0 Then, in the summer of 2010, they were suddenly everywhere, eating everything.\u00a0 Some farmers in Maryland lost up to 20% of their crops.\u00a0 Pennsylvanians found them chewing on everything from soybeans to sweet corn.\u00a0 Soon after, homeowners started hearing strange buzzing sounds, and the tell-tale “pop” of something hitting a lampshade, or plunking onto a counter.\u00a0 They hang out on your water faucet, or perch on the lip of your wine glass.\u00a0 And if you annoy them, or try to pick them up, they spray a noxious odor that smells like a skunk wearing dirty socks.\u00a0 And that, some say, just attracts more of them.<\/p>\n
Yep, it’s the invasion of the stink bugs.\u00a0 Halyomorpha halys<\/em>, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, is a dime-sized, shield-shaped, tough-skinned beetle that came from China, where it is a pest.\u00a0 It arrived in Pennsylvania as early as 1998 and until recently was just a minor nuisance.\u00a0 But then, in the summer of 2010, stink bugs were suddenly everywhere, eating everything. \u00a0And a lot of people started smelling a big problem.\u00a0 “I’ve never seen such a serious pest enter the U.S. agricultural system,” said Tracy Lesky, research entomologist with the West Virginia-based Appalachian Fruit Research Station, “if only because they attack so many crops.”\u00a0 Stinkbugs are tough, reproduce quickly, can fly long distances, and are very good at hitchhiking inside clothes and vehicles.\u00a0 They can live in wet and dry climates, both cold and warm, and will eat almost anything.\u00a0 They have been reported in 33 states.\u00a0 And they may have reached a critical mass.\u00a0 Said Mike Raupp of the University of Maryland, “If 1 in 10 people had stink bugs in 2010, 9 in 10 people will have them in 2011. \u00a0I think it is going to be biblical.”<\/p>\n But help may be on the way, in the form of something as small as the comma in this sentence.\u00a0 At the Louis A. Stearns Laboratory in Newark, Delaware, some tiny parasitic wasps are wiping out stinkbugs before they start.\u00a0 The wasps locate stink bug egg colonies and inject their own eggs inside.\u00a0 There, the wasp larvae eat their way through the stink bug eggs and destroy them before they can hatch.\u00a0 The Department of Agriculture has been studying this since 2005. They are considering releasing the wasps into the environment, but first they have to determine that the wasps won’t attack other beneficial bugs or cause some other great damage.\u00a0 That research won’t be complete until at least 2013.\u00a0 But that may be too late for some.\u00a0 Said Maryland apple farmer Robert Black, “I had 30 to 35 percent damage last season, and I can’t handle 40 to 50 percent. That’s what I’m scared about.”<\/p>\n Are we headed for the ultimate bug battle, the stinkers vs. the stingers?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 In the meantime, we’re in for one smelly summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They came from far away.\u00a0 They are armed with shields, and suits of armor.\u00a0 They are in our homes, and eating our food.\u00a0 They number in the millions.\u00a0 And they stink. For years they were largely ignored, until apple farmers began noticing damage to their crops.\u00a0 Then, in the summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[305,535,1172],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6","tag-crops","tag-halyomorpha-haly","tag-stink-bugs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}