Ohio faces invasion of stink bugs

By Frank Thomas

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

Ohio stinks.

The brown marmorated stink bug has officially made the Buckeye State its home.

The invasive insect first showed up in Columbus in late 2007. Now, thousands are turning up across the state, said Ron Hammond, an entomologist with Ohio State University’s Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.

Hammond wants home-owners who find the bug in their houses this fall to contact their county OSU Extension office to help determine how many of the bugs are in the state.

Adult stink bugs search for sites in which to sit out the winter in September through the first half of October.

“True to their name, stink bugs ... do have an offensive odor,” Hammond said. “You can’t go around crushing a lot of them, or you’ll stink up the place.”

The pest first landed in Pennsylvania in 1998, likely after hitching a ride in shipping containers from Asia, where it damages fruit and soybeans in China and Japan.

It has since spread to New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and New York, as well as the District of Columbia. Specimens also have been found in Massachusetts, Oregon and California.

Wherever they go, they cause problems for home-owners and farmers alike.

“They basically suck the juices out of the plant,” said Celeste Welty, an OSU entomologist studying the pest. “In Maryland, whole fields of crops were lost” this summer.

This stink bug has no predators in North America and can thrive easily.

In other states, there’s been a pattern. First, a few bugs show up. The next year, they infest homes and buildings. Then, on the third year, they go into the fields.

That gives Ohio one more year.

“We’re just trying to stay on top of it so we’re not caught off guard,” Hammond said. “You can get a lot of damage just from a low population. We have to be careful.”

In Maryland, homeowners and farmers have been at war with the stink bug, said Gaye Williams, an entomologist with the Maryland Department of Agriculture. “They’d spray one wave, and [the bugs] died, but another wave came right after them,” Williams said. “It’s like one of those old war movies.”

Researchers, however, believe they have found a long-term solution. They think the insect could be tamed by its arch nemesis — a Chinese wasp.

But that is years away. Welty said the government needs to determine that the wasp won’t cause more problems than it solves.

In the meantime, Williams has some words for Ohio residents.

“Just brace yourselves,” she said. “This is the perfect bug — one of biblical proportions.”