Florida is extending a warm welcome to a new pest!
Kudzu bugs — 3.5 to 6 millimeters long, rounded oblong and olive-green — lay egg masses in two rows of 13 to 137 eggs per row.
Their first generation seems to prefer feeding on kudzu, but subsequent generations will feed on and lay eggs on other legumes.
When fall comes, adults over-winter where they can find shelter. They crawl under tree bark and into houses' cracks.
The kudzu bug — first documented in the U.S. in 2009 in Northeast Georgia — has quickly spread throughout the Southeast.
Last year, the kudzu bug made its first appearance in Okaloosa County.
This year, its settling.
At first, a pest that attacks kudzu sounds pretty good, but this bug also attacks wisteria, figs and other legumes like beans and peas. It also is a serious pest to soybeans grown in our area.
They are similar to stink bugs and discharge an odor when disturbed. Skin and eye irritation can occur from this odor emission.
Getting rid of the bugs
If kudzu bugs enter your home, you can vacuum and dispose of them.
If they are in your garden, you can set a trap using a bucket of soapy water and a piece of white poster board. Just cut the poster board in half; cut a line up the middle of the two pieces and insert them into each other; and place the plus sign-shaped board over the bucket. As the insects hit the board, they will fall into the bucket and drown.
You can use insecticides, but timing and placement are important. Right now, kudzu bugs are just becoming active, making now a good time to spray kudzu host plants with an insecticide. Insecticides with active ingredients ending in “-thrin”, such as pyrethrin and cyfluthrin, are effective against them. Just read instructions and follow precautions.
Controlling kudzu near your house will help decrease the number of bugs, but they are strong flyers and can migrate through neighborhoods that aren’t near kudzu.
Kudzu bugs have natural enemies: generalist predators like green lacewings, lady beetles, damsel bugs and big eye bugs.
Two parasitoids attack them: a tiny wasp that develops in the kudzu bug eggs and a fly that lays eggs in the adult kudzu bug.
The kudzu bug, like other exotic invasive insects, is opportunistic; we have yet to see how many different plants species may serve as a host for this pest.
Jennifer Bearden is an agent at the University of Florida's Extension office in Crestview.