Marilyn Tilbury, whose article I had permission to print under the latest blog on SWDs also wanted me to ask if anyone in HOS has seen evidence of the brown marmorated stink bug in the Portland area. She has reason to fear it may be making inroads here.....slowly

I googled "brown marmorated stink bug oregon" since I wanted to see a picture of it. I came across this report (website below) from KATU tv station from October 2010 which states that some people have experienced some damage in home gardens. There is a link to the Oregon pest alert flier and a link to a gallery with some good photos of crop damage and close-ups of the bug.

http://www.katu.com/news/local/104018099.html

In my own yard, I have seen a bug that looked like a member of the stink bug family but I'm hoping it was the native Rough Stink bug. It sounds like it can be difficult to distinguish the juvenile Asian stink bug from the native (non-harmful) stink bug. I often found them on my raspberry bushes but I never detected any damage from them. Oddly enough, last year I did not notice as many as in previous years. This year I will try to make more of an effort to to ID any stink bug-looking creature....when I'm not looking for SWD!

Yes, I have seen it in Canby, but not in great numbers. Before this year I wasn't really paying attention to it but I did pay attention this year. I picked off and killed maybe 7 of them that I found on the side of my house during the Fall. I found another half dozen hiding behind some boards and towels that were stashed up against my house on the back porch. I found maybe two or three out amongst my blackberries during the Summer. I figure these numbers will only increase.

I went to the PO today and picked up my mail. Included was a copy of Penn State's AgScience magazine (Winter/Spring 2011) [I got my Master's degree in Wood Science and Utilization from Penn St. which was in their College of Agriculture.]

Aside from the ugly cover photo (greatly enlarged and in color) of a mosquito was an article on the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. It can be accessed at:

http://agsci.psu.edu/magazine/articles/2011/winter-spring/stink-bug-primer?searchterm=stink%2520bug%2520primer

Additionally there was a link to a Penn St. extension publication on the same subject accessible at:

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/brown-marmorated-stink-bug

I hope this helps !!!

I think I have had some of those in my garden. I didn't know what they were, so I squished them. They are really hard to squish!
John S
PDX OR

Have been forwarding this to Marilyn.....she finds it fascinating and scary and seems to think this is a problem that will only get worse.

I ran off copies of some of this info being supplied here, am reading it, enjoy being useful......but also am feeling a part of me wanting to just absolve myself of the responsibility of being informed on this or that or whatever the latest pestilence is to hit us and just wish we had a team of entomologists instead who could spoon-feed me as to what to do and could identify every problem out there by simply being sent a picture via the internet or something easy like that. I don't trust my ability to correctly identify these bugs....but hey, that's life, eh?

I just found this guy on the side of my house:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2143073/DSCN1396.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2143073/DSCN1394.JPG

This does *not* appear to be the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, despite my previous post.

No white banding on the antennae.
No distinctive black/white checkering along the edges of the abdomen.
Shoulder (right behind eye) is serrated, not smooth.

Should I be killing these guys anyway?

Okay.....I have "egg on my face" already with this one.

I mentioned that Marilyn found this bug to be scary.....

but that was before the last info supplied by "LeeN" had been sent to her.....and she had time to think about it and responded to me. Now, her current thinking is that with the current info out there, Marilyn believes that the weather conditions that have contributed to blighting the crop back East are not likely to blight us here to nearly the same degree.....and what she now believes is this pest is not likely to terrorize us the way it has recently with orchards back east.

My apologies to the degree I provided more confusion than enlightenment......I guess this bug is on a "watch" list....but it is not even in the same ballpark as needing our attention like the spotted wing drosophilia.

but thanks for those who can give me "reality checks" and a "sounding board."

Ahhhh Don:

When I have spoken with Oregon Department of Agriculture personnel, they have repeatedly stated that the Brown Marmorated Stink bug will be a very real and serious problem.

BMSB has become established in the Portland area and these ODA staff members indicated that it has spread as far south as Salem.

I noted in email communication with ODA staff that BMSB looked very similar to the picture of Say's Stink bug (Chlorochroa sayi) as it appears in my volume: "Garden Insects of North America" by Whitney Cranshaw (p229).

The general description of stink bugs therein is: "Many stink bugs are general feeders of plants and cause injuries primarily when they suck sap from buds, flowere and developing fruits."

The book mentions two stink bugs that are predators -- the Two spotted stink bug (Perillus biocultatus) and the Spined soldier bug (Podisus maculiventris). The first looks nothing like BMSB but the latter appears to me from a very small image somewhat similar (another brown bug).

okay, I need to be more careful in phraseology sometimes and less entertaining......what follows is basically accurate but is not reported with total scientific carefulness.

Today I am in Wenatchee, Washington for the "2011 North Central Washington Apple Day" and I was surprised to see that some time is being given to this topic. Apparently it is a topic that has caught the media's attention in some parts. The title of Mike Doerr's talk at 9:30 a.m in the Wenatchee Convention Center today was "Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. The Stink bug on Steroids. Soon to arrive?"

Mike Doerr is working with Jay Brunner with (I think) the Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research Station. The issue of stink bugs seems to come and go as a subject of interest with the Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research Station. Mr. Doerr said that he had been in the Portland area recently, that the BMSB is a problem of interest in Portland, but that so far it has not affected the fruit crops there. He said that if you track the bug it follows the major interstate corridors back east and that it has been seen here in the Northwest to go from Portland down to Salem. He said there was one person who believes this bug was seen in Seattle but it has not been verified from the national specialist back east.
None of the fruit growers had questions after this presentation even though there were 100 people there. I did. I asked if the environment here in Washington was similar enough that we should worry about it. He thought so, but after the meeting was over he indicated to me privately that some growers did not think this a topic worthy of discussion yet as this particular species of stink bug, the brown marmorated one, still has not been seen in North Central Washington.
Mr. Doerr told me he would not worry about it too much if he were a backyard grower in Portland other than vacuum it out if it is a household nuisance.
Editorial Note on my part: I guess this question is if it is only a matter of time before this bug goes from being an overwintering problem in people's houses to a garden bug.

Please! Do all that you can do within a humane fashion to keep that thing out of your gardens and homes. That might be the most disgusting and horrifying bug I have ever seen. EW! Remind me not move out to the Pacific Northwest!

From a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture website by the bug's name is the following:

Distribution

Native to Asia (China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan)
First North American detection: Allentown, PA 1998
As of September 2010, officially reported from 34 counties the Commonwealth (see attached map); likely present in all other counties
Reportedly found in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming

If my recollection is correct, Knoxville is in a state in the above list.

Good luck battling it on your own turf. Maybe if enough people try creative approaches to combat it, we might come up with something effective.

Lee, “RipeForThePicking” has logged on within a barrage of spam attacks against our forum… I don’t know as I’ve seen anything but light chatter from ‘her’ posts and feel they were only made as a way of inserting the commercial link in her ‘signature.’

I appreciate you responding but will be surprised if her interest is sincere. If such posts continue - I will ask that her account be deleted and access denied. In fact, I may ask it anyway…

I thought I'd bring this old thread back to life. I am seeing several of these brown marmorated stink bugs, through the summer on my raspberries, and yesterday I saw several of them on an apple tree, clustered on one apple. I trapped one today, and it has a white band on the antennae, as well as white bands on the legs in the center of the middle segments. It looks like the bottom one in this picture:


I am emailing the Oregon State Dept of Ag. entomologist, to see what they say about them. Does anyone else have advice or comments?

I had some attacking my young pawpaw trees. They are very adept at avoiding people. They seemed to suck the life out of green plants. They are hard to kill because they are hard and you really have to crush them. I have been very deliberate in killing them. They are accurately named. You mess with my pawpaws, I mess with you!
John S
PDX OR