7 days ago
Lanternflies are swarming Virginia, threatening its $8B wine industry
Look. There's one. Rose-gray backside with black dots, swaggering its way up a wooden post on a cloud-splotched morning in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. It's a spotted lanternfly.
Scott Spelbring, director of winemaking and viticulture at Bluemont Winery, flicks the fly off the post, then immediately spots another one wiggling toward a cluster of green grapes, each growing fruit as tiny as an eraser on a No. 2 pencil.
