Spotted lanternflies love grapes. That has N.J. vineyards worried.

It was about three years ago when Mike Beneduce Jr. noticed an insect he’d never seen before flitting amongst the grapevines at Beneduce Vineyards, where he’s vineyard manager and winemaker. The insect was unique, with spotted wings and patches of red, black, and white. Before long, he was clocking the insect on vines throughout the farm’s 20 plus acres.

“Nobody really knew anything at that point, except that they love grapes,” Beneduce told NJ Advance Media.

After speaking with other farm owners in the Hunterdon County area, where Beneduce Vineyards is located, he learned to identify the insect as the spotted lanternfly, an invasive species that had been causing headaches for Pennsylvania farmers in recent years.

A native of China, India and Vietnam, the spotted lanternfly first appeared in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 2014. It eats the sap of plants and trees, leaving behind a sugary liquid called honeydew that encourages fungal growth on the weakened plants. Lanternflies have been known to swarm Pennsylvania towns in the hundreds of thousands. They were first confirmed to be in New Jersey in 2018. Since then, infestations have been found in 20 of the state’s 21 counties, according to a map of confirmed spotted lanternfly locations.

News of the spotted lanternfly’s spread is foreboding to winegrowers like Beneduce, who’s heard a few nightmare scenarios coming out of Pennsylvania vineyards.

“They were sort of ground zero for this thing, where they just didn’t know what it was or how to treat it or anything. They were weakened so badly that the vines died in the winter, and that’s a huge economic loss,” he said.

Vineyards are like orchards in the sense that they rely on perennial crops, which – unlike annual crops – don’t need to be replanted each year. Vineyard owners expect their grapevines to have a lifespan of 40 or 50 years, Beneduce explained, “so when you lose a plant like that, it costs a lot to bring it back into production.”

Last year, Beneduce said the vineyard saw spotted lanternfly “in much higher amounts than 2019 — enough where we were certainly concerned.”

He began consulting with researchers at both Rutgers Cooperative Extension and Cornell University, who conducted experiments and studies on his vineyard to learn more about the spotted lanternfly. The work is ongoing, but has resulted in some recommendations for defense against the pest — namely well-timed insecticides.

“We never like spraying insecticides in our vineyard unless absolutely necessary, just because it’s not great for the environment, but last year was sort of down to the options of either, manage them with well-timed insecticide sprays or let them consume your crop, which was not an option obviously for a commercial grower. It’s tricky,” Beneduce said.

Nick Sharko, a wine grower at Alba Vineyard in Milford, said he has been navigating the tricky management of spotted lanternfly for several years now. The winery is located in the village of Finesville in Warren County, a short ride from Bucks County, Pennsylvania — meaning the spotted lanternfly was a familiar foe to Sharko long before it moved east to other N.J farms.

“It’s new for you guys in eastern New Jersey, but it’s actually been around here for a while,” Sharko told NJ Advance Media.

Similarly to Beneduce, Sharko said his vineyard experienced an influx of spotted lanternfly last year, while 2021 has proven a little more tame. He usually tries to time the spraying of insecticides to occur right after harvest and has avoided “catastrophic issues” so far, but he still notices a few vines that have been impacted by the invasive insect.

“It weakens the vine’s overall health and I noticed we have some where they were really bad,” he said.

While the pest has yet to be found at Ventimiglia Vineyard, a winery in Wantage Township in Sussex County, Anthony Ventimiglia said it’s only a matter of time before the spotted lanternfly encroaches on his crops.

“Based on my past experiences with invasive insects — we’ve had the Emerald ash borer here for over a decade — I expect by next summer we will be waving the white flag and looking forward to our vineyards and orchards being decimated,” he told NJ Advance Media.

Dr. Amanda Tokash-Peters, an assistant professor of biology at Centenary University in Hackettstown, is currently conducting research on the spotted lanternfly in an effort to find methods of controlling the pesky, crop-killing bug’s spread.

“I‘ve seen some really high reports, in some cases, myself firsthand. We’ve had really, really high abundance of lanternflies in both apple orchards and vineyards, which is obviously a little bit heartbreaking,” Tokash-Peters said.

At present, she said the best course of action to protecting the vineyards we love so much (not to mention the 69 other plant species spotted lanternfly are known to feed on) is a simple one — “keep an eye out for spotted lanternflies and kill them as soon as you see them.”

She urges New Jerseyans to get creative with their “lanternfly killing crusade,” noting the public awareness a “lanternfly murder pub crawl” organized last month in Bordentown City brought to the issue.

Tokash-Peters regularly posts advice on her Twitter and Instagram account about what to do if you encounter an invasive insect, such as the spotted lanternfly. NJ.com also has some tips for how to exterminate the bug should you come across it.

Right now the spotted lanternfly is in its adult life stage and almost complete laying its egg masses. While it can’t survive the winter, the insect’s egg masses can, and produce about 30 to 50 nymphs that hatch in the spring.

“Keep an eye out for those if you see them and be sure to remove them and destroy them. That way we can prevent, in any given egg mass, another 50 or so lanternflies next season,” Tokash-Peters said.

You can learn to identify the spotted lanternfly, in all its forms, at the NJDA website.

Spotted lanternfly sightings can be reported through a dedicated website, by email to SLF-plantindustry@ag.nj.gov or by phone at (833) 422-3284.

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Jackie Roman may be reached at jroman@njadvancemedia.com.