No insecticide treatment is needed or recommended for Spotted Lanternfly. Any chemical (organic or otherwise) that is effective on them can also harm other insects, including pollinators and predators that eat the lanternflies. They can also kill harmless insects like fireflies, butterflies, bees, ladybugs, and praying mantids, plus spiders, which eat lanternflies and other pests. There is no chemical specific to Spotted Lanternfly. Vinegar used around the house is too dilute/weak to have any impact on weeds, insects, or other pests, and the "vinegar" (more accurately called acetic acid) that is used as an herbicide is not an insecticide, and it is highly caustic and hazardous to use without good eye, skin, and respiratory protection. Do not spray household vinegar in the garden; at best, it will do nothing, but at worst, you'll be harming soil life (including the beneficial microbes that keep roots healthy) and causing phytotoxicity damage on plant foliage, which the plant cannot heal.

Although Spotted Lanternfly is invasive, it is too well-established after having been in our region for a decade now to be eradicated. It is present state-wide, and also occurs in several other states. Like other invasive insects before it, lanternfly will probably follow the same pattern (already being seen in some of the counties where it first appeared): a rise in population, high numbers for a few years (perhaps 2-3), then a decline to background levels that are kept low because of predators and insect-specific infections that kill part of the population. Brown Marmorated Stink Bug was one of the invasive insects that came into Maryland before Spotted Lanternfly, and it's now a minor issue. Home garden plants are not damaged by Spotted Lanternfly, and even if control measures are temporarily successful, they will not eradicate the insect for long. Once the adults can fly, other individuals can re-enter a cleared yard and recolonize the area.

Miri