Harbor Predators

Harbor Predators

Yes - that’s a request.

A few weeks ago - August 27th - I got an email then followed up by a phone call. The local New Hampshire TV station wanted a quick interview about the appearance of Spotted lanternfly (SLF) in the town of Salem, New Hampshire. It was the first sighting in the state and only about 8 miles from my vineyard in Derry, NH.

The timing didn’t work out and seemingly not with other grape growers in NH either. The next day no interview was on the news, the sighting was briefly mentioned, and the interest seemed to pass. Just a symptom of the flash news cycle that seems urgent then gets ignored the next minute.

I’m not overly concerned. My vineyard is on the site of a 200+ year old farm. Untouched (at least by me) by insecticides. My theory is that if you spray to control these insects, you also kill the good (predator) insects. And lack of insects deters the bird population also feeding on them. There is no easy balance once you remove something holding up the Jenga pile.  The previous farm shut down sometime in the 1970s. Nature took over in between these two farms.

Often in the evenings, I will sit on our tasting room patio with a glass of my wine while our dogs try to find rabbits to chase. I often see birds sitting on a vineyard wire and diving down to catch insects in the vines - nature controlling insect population.

Over the past 2 years, we have had a family of hawks in our large spruce tree. By summer the parents are teaching the young to hunt. The scream of these large birds keeps the smaller birds scarce during veraison of the red grapes. I smile because they are the top of the food chain. The real raptors augment the “Bird Gard” device that screams not only the hawk sounds but also distress calls from several other birds known to hunt grapes. The Bird Gard seems to attract the hawks too.  These hawks and owls take different shifts in the vineyard. The owls by night hunting the rodents while the birds sleep.

In these ways, nature is balanced. I see scat from bobcats, coyote, and even the stray feral house cats who visit the vineyard at night. Even deer pass through, but our dogs leave scents that do not let turkeys or deer frequent the vines.

On warm summer nights we watch first the dragonflies, then later in the evening the bats hunting mosquitoes. As the weather cools at night - now in the later half of September, dragonflies and other insects become rare and the warm blooded bats seek other prey.

So back to the SLF…

A quick search for SLF predators yielded this list:

- Praying Mantises (uncommon, but present)

- Wheel bugs and assassin bugs (uncommon, but present)

- Spined Soldier Bugs (we have many)

- Spiders and Ants (yes, of course we have many)

- Backyard Birds including chickens, cardinals, catbirds, bluejays, house wrens (yes, all of them, but the chickens wander over from the neighbor)

- Bats (plenty)

- Garter Snakes (plenty)

We try not injure any of these know predators on our property. Our 200 year old barn provides more than enough of a refuge for the bats wriggling their way into the structure when their sorties are done for the night. I find them from time to time dropping from a doorway or hanging in the rafters. About 20 years ago when we replaced the barn roof structure, the eaves were full of guano. We have since sealed up the soffits with metal, but I believe they are finding their way in under it - or over.

All summer long the NH Department of Agriculture has been monitoring traps in my vineyard - watching for any invasive insects of all sorts. Frequent checking - even yesterday, September 15th, 2026 yielded un-interesting results. As my family doctor says - boring is good!

So I was thinking about writing this article and sharing it with others. Not thinking about when I would, nothing urgent I thought. Today as I was talking with some customers in our outdoor space at our wine bar in Salem, NH, and this bug flew past me and landed on a wall of the building. 

I quickly became the predator, captured the SLF in a beer glass, and killed it in a napkin. I opened the wings to see if this is really the culprit I thought it was. Of course it is.

We have a few grapevines in planters as decoration outside our wine bar. In fact, they have been constantly watered since we put them there. So, they appear to be 3 year old plants after 6 months in the “ground”. Now I will watch these plants for signs of the SLF. A quick check later I found none.

According to the NH Department of Agriculture, SLF have only been detected on Tree of Heaven in NH. Apparently this is changing.

Because we are very much into the harvest season, nobody should be spraying insecticides now. As, I’ve said, I do not. But even if you want to, I would suggest you consider the alternative…

Harbor Predators!

- Mike Appolo