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Here come the stinkbugs

By |  November 21, 2013

The stinkbugs are coming! In many cases, they are here. The outbreak, trumpeted by even a casual reading of the general press, is predicted to be unbelievably large. This time, it appears that reports about the population explosion are valid. However, your turfgrass budget will be spared.

“They really don’t damage turf or ornamentals,” said David Shetlar, Ohio State University’s associate professor of landscape entomology – aka the BugDoc. “They are a nuisance invader.”

As a nuisance invader, stinkbugs are likely to show up in the attics of clubhouses, in the storage areas above maintenance garages and in similar protected places.

Like the Asian ladybeetle, the stinkbug will look for structures that stand out in the environment, according to Shetlar. A white building is a prime target, as are buildings with surrounding trees. He is fairly certain the stinkbugs will come around again near springtime.

In field crops, fruits and vegetables, the stinkbug is another story. There, damage can reach economic thresholds. “By this time [of the season], they probably have reached their zenith in terms of problems. But they are not going to go away,” Shetlar said.

Right now, male and female stinkbugs are storing food for the winter. They will feed on crabapples, honeysuckle berries and similar tasty treats.

The stinkbug alarm follows on the heels of a furor raised this summer over cicadas. Many observers predicted hundreds of millions of cicadas would invade golf courses all over the East Coast and Midwest. As noted in August, the feared plague of locusts never happened. Shetlar credits, or blames, the hyped news reports about cicadas on the fact that some entomologists in the Washington, D.C. area gained access to the national media and the story spread faster than the insects. According to Shetlar, the next potential cicada outbreak in the Midwest is likely 2016.

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