Scientists seeking emergency OK from EPA to use stink bug pesticide in orchards in 7 states

If they succeed, fruit growers in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia could begin spraying with products containing dinotefuran before September and October, when extensive harm from the bugs is possible, said Virginia Tech. entomologist J. Christopher Bergh.

“With respect to that product, we do feel that it has a very good fit toward the end of the growing season,” Bergh said during a panel discussion at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg.

The meeting was organized by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., who called last summer for an aggressive federal response to swarms of the hardy, invasive Asian insects in his district and the region.

Bergh said he is preparing a petition to submit this spring to Virginia’s agriculture department and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticide use.

U.S. Agriculture Department scientists also are experimenting with scented traps and Asian wasps that prey on stink bugs, but both of those potential solutions are years away.

Dinotefuran is an ingredient in two commercial insecticides, Venom from Valent BioSciences Corp., a unit of Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd., and Scorpion from Gowan Co. LLC of Yuma, Ariz. The EPA currently allows its use on vegetables, grapes and cotton but it used in Japan and other Asian countries to control brown marmorated stink bugs on a wider variety of crops, including orchard fruits.

Bergh cautioned, though, that Japanese research about the compound’s effectiveness in controlling stink bugs has not yet been translated or published. He also noted that Japanese regulators allow growers to use more of it than is currently allowed on U.S. field crops.

And although it is known to be effective against a broad spectrum of insects, including stink bugs, that attack certain U.S. field crops, it hasn’t been tested in U.S. orchards, Bergh said.

Nevertheless, because of its known characteristics, there is a consensus among researchers that dinotefuran is the most suitable candidate for an emergency exemption, he said.

The EPA allows such exemptions to the permitted uses of a pesticide if it determines that an emergency condition exists. The exemption lasts no longer than one year but applicants can seek additional approvals.

Even if the emergency exemption is granted, dinotefuran is just part of a potential defense, Bergh said.

This year, five orchards in central and northern Virginia will also test the effectiveness of other, permitted insecticides on stink bugs, Bergh said.

And fruit growers in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia will allow researchers to place traps baited with a stink bug attractant to monitor the numbers of insects throughout the growing season, said Tracy C., Leskey, a USDA research entomologist.

Scientists said the insects are in 33 states and spreading.

Last year, they damaged up to 50 percent of some late-season apples at Catoctin Mountain Orchard in Thurmont, said Robert Black, the company’s president.

The bugs feed on the fruit, leaving dimples on the surface and larger, brown discoloration inside the fruit beneath the dimples.