I’m in western North Carolina. There’s a species of bug we call a shield bug, which at certain times of the year teems and lots of them are found all over the place including the mailbox. I took some pictures and IDed them as shield bugs, but @tanker-aviator-naturalist, who lives nearby in South Carolina, pointed out that the only bug around here that looks like that is the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys. A few days ago, I took a closeup photo of one, and that’s clearly what it is.
I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it’s an invasive species and an agricultural pest. I live in the boonies, with horses, goats, cows, and a zebu nearby, and some fields are cut for hay. I’ve been putting the bugs outside, unlike the cockroaches, which I scald, but now that I know they’re pests, what should I do with them?
You may wish to see if they need to be reported to any agency. (Here in MX that species and others do, for the exact reason you state, that they affect agriculture.)
You also could ask your local state agricultural offices how best to address them.
As Lucy said, you should look whether there is any official statement on what to do when finding one.
Apart from that, some people say to kill any invasive organism you see, but personally, I am of the opinion that for these very well established species, killing would do little good. I just leave them or flick them off any crop or other plant I’m partial to. (Which of course works only on city-garden-scale)
For actually dealing with the pest on a large scale, perhaps the “Anti-Kartoffelkäfer-Watschnmaschine” might help with these too, even though it was designed for potato beetles. Here is a video for your enjoyment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuJfnDxClQ0 (the video is in German, but the visuals are more than enough IMO)
I brought up la Lista de plagas 2024, and there’s la chinche marmolada. I noticed another species, escoba de bruja de cacao, which literally means cacao witch’s broom. There’s a pine witch’s broom on the lot where I live, which IIRR is called fitoplasma de pinos in Spanish. But Phytoplasma is a bacterium, while Moniliophthora is a fungus. Is there anything called witch’s broom in English and escoba de bruja in Spanish?
“Watschn” looks like dialect, and Michael sounds like he’s speaking dialect. German is my fourth, and first non-native, language. (Spanish is my third, and I was an overhearer but now speak it pretty well. I count heritage languages as native, following Silvina Montrul.)
That machine might be useful to the neighbors, but I’m not a farmer. Is there a marmorated bug trap like the Japanese beetle trap?
This I would not know, as common names in English and Spanish vary from place to place. Thankfully there is only one scientific name for each species, and each scientific name means just the one species. For clarity, best practice is probably to include the scientific name always.
Regarding your other question, I do not know, but my university’s botanical garden has a few traps on their Paulownias which I suspect are for H. halys. I would ask, but it’s probably gonna be a couple of months until they are out again…
That’s fine, it’ll be a few months here before the bugs are out in full force. I was wanting to get a good picture of one, but thought I’d have to wait till spring, and was not expecting to see one at chest/belly height on the doorframe of the bathroom at the end of November.
Yes, witch’s broom is the name for a deformity in tree twigs that causes a tight ball of twigs, most common in birch. And the 1968 book on British galls by Darlington says the witch’s broom can be caused by fungus or bacterium. Their galls are indistinguishable.
To return to your original question, one thing that the government here does is prepare a packet of detailed information, called a ficha técnica for each of these agricultural threats, which includes informations about life cycles, hosts (like cacao), photos of instars (if applicable), etc.
For example in this state there is quite a lot of citrus (La Feria de la Naranja in Oxkutzcab begins in just 2 days!), so Xanthomonas citri ssp citri, number four on that list and 4 total observations on iNaturalist is of particular concern. Here is a ficha técnica for that, which you will see includes information about biosafety measures.
I would think the agricultural offices in your area may have similar information for species like H. halys and others which threaten your local/state agricultural economies, and perhaps offer localized recommendations.
Your iNaturalist profile mentions Rutherford County. Might this be a helpful office?
Western NC here, too, and lots of stink bugs invading the house over the winter. There used to be a project where you could report sightings when this was still fairly new. I’ve done that in the past, but I think they’ve stopped taking reports since we’re pretty much permanently infested by now - more info at the NC Extension.
Personally, what I do now is collect all the ones I find around the house into a ziplock bag in my freezer. Once cold weather gets here and the birds are hungry, I supplement my bird food offerings with the frozen stinkers.