Ontario wineries are warning that a lantern fly discovery in a shipment of planting pots from the United States could put vineyards at risk after inspectors found 12 dead spotted lanternflies. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was contacted last month after a St. Catharines, Ontario, resident found a dead spotted lanternfly.
Norman Beal, president of the Peninsula Ridge Estates Winery and board chair of Ontario Craft Wineries, said, "It can have a devastating impact" on vineyards. Beal said, "They can get into your vineyard, they burrow into the trunks of vines, lay their larvae and their eggs and then become a major, major problem to vineyard mortality."
CFIA Finds 12 Dead In Pots
After an inspection, the CFIA collected the 12 dead spotted lanternflies in an imported shipment of planting pots from the United States. Diana Mooij, the CFIA's technical lead for spotted lanternflies and a program specialist in the invasive alien species, grain and oilseeds section, said, "(The) spotted lanternfly is a sap sucker and it relies on sugars and the amino acids found in those sugars for its life cycle and for its survival."
The insect is still not known to be present in Canada, but the CFIA says a live spotted lanternfly in the environment would be considered a detection in Canada. The agency says the insect poses a significant threat to the grape, tree fruit, wine and ornamental nursery industries.
Ontario Wine Industry Alarm
Ontario wineries say the insect is extremely dangerous to the industry. Mooij said U.S. grapes and grapevines have been among the hardest hit, and that in U.S. infestations, "There can be yield losses, for sure, up to 90 per cent and, even in extreme cases, there have been death of vines."
The insect was first detected in North America in 2014 and has since spread in 19 U.S. states. Mooij added that a 2019 Pennsylvania State University study estimated the impact in Pennsylvania's quarantine zone at US$50.1 million per year and about 484 lost jobs; the same study said a worst-case scenario would increase those amounts to $554 million and about 5,000 lost jobs.
What Spotted Lanternflies Ride On
Amanda Roe, a research scientist at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre with Natural Resources Canada, said spotted lanternflies are "amazing hitchikers" that can get onto vehicles and camping gear and move very easily with things people like to move. That leaves Ontario growers watching not just imported nursery stock, but any pathway that could carry the insect into vineyards and other plant industries.
For Ontario wineries, the immediate concern is simple: one dead insect in a shipment already led to a provincial inspection, and a live one would raise the stakes quickly in a province where the pest is still not known to be established. The next pressure point is keeping it out of Canada before it reaches vines, fruit trees or nursery stock.
