Netting orchards may be only way to beat brown marmorated stink bug

Growers could be forced to choose between toxic sprays or encasing orchards in plastic netting, a symposium on the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) heard on Monday.

About 50 a year are intercepted at the New Zealand border, making it only a matter of time before the devastating bug slips through border controls.

The prolific breeder, with a voracious appetite for a wide range of plants, would have a wide economic and environmental impact in New Zealand should it establish itself.

The main problem with the bug is the way it feeds, injecting digestive enzymes into plants that cause deformation, discolouration and pitting.

The bug's name is well earned; they reek when squashed, which is of extra concern to the wine industry at harvest, when fruit is crushed.

No country has succeeded in eradicating the pest, which is native to Asia.

It would set growers in Hawke's Bay back decades, cutting yields and requiring strong broad-spectrum sprays.

Keynote speaker, Appalachian Fruit Research Station scientist Tracy Leskey, gave a live video presentation from West Virginia to about 80 scientists at the Napier War Memorial Centre.

She said the brown marmorated stink bug was discovered in the United States in 2001, and its effect on the mid-Atlantic part of the country had been devastating.

Apple growers immediately lost tens of millions of dollars of production.

Spray regimes were now in place, but it was a costly exercise.

"BMSB is no longer a crisis, but the battle persists," Leskey said.

"It is still having an effect on our production systems."

Some US orchards had succeeded in excluding the bug from crops with netting.

"It is definitely a potential strategy."

Trials in US orchards were difficult to administer because the flying bug was highly mobile, necessitating region-wide trials, she said.

The symposium was organised by the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Council, a partnership between government agencies and the industry that aims to prepare an effective strategy for when the bug makes it past border controls.

The symposium is the first day of the annual conference of the New Zealand Plant Protection Society's annual conference, for the exchange of scientific information on all aspects of plant protection.

Made with funding from