Brown marmorated stink bug
Halyomorpha halys
Role in the garden
A polyphagous bug from Asia, detected in Europe in 2004 and in France from 2012. It feeds mainly on flowers and fruit, and its damage appears even at low numbers. In France, the first damage dates from 2018, in kiwi orchards in the South-West, then from 2019 in Savoie; it has affected the whole South-East since 2020. In autumn, the adults sometimes invade houses to overwinter; they are harmless to people and animals.
Activity period
From April, when it leaves its winter shelter, to autumn; eggs laid in June and August, one or two generations a year in Europe
How to attract / manage it
Approaches still under study: insect netting, monitoring and reporting.
Practical guide
Where to find them
On flowers and fruit: peach, apple, pear, hazel, kiwi, grapevine, soft fruit, vegetables and maize; whitish eggs laid in clusters on the leaves; in autumn, on façades and inside houses, where the adults look for a dry shelter to overwinter.
Prevention
Protect fruit trees and sensitive crops with an insect net, an approach INRAE is studying in orchards; report your sightings to INRAE with the Agiir app, which tracks the spread of the invasion.
Early signs
Marks and distortions on the fruit, corky areas and brown-stained flesh as the fruit grows; aborted flower buds, fallen young fruit. Nymphs with a rectangular head, spiny along the sides, with black antennae spotted white; greyish-brown adults 12 to 17 mm long, with dark antennae ringed pale and abdomen edges alternating white and black; a smell reminiscent of coriander.
Action / control
Biological control with tiny egg-parasitoid wasps (Anastatus bifasciatus, present in France, and several Trissolcus species) is under study at INRAE. Pheromone traps are used to monitor its presence (INRAE, RHS).
Sources
- INRAE, Ephytia : Agiir, « Punaise diabolique », « Connaître son cycle » et « Reconnaître la punaise diabolique »
- RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) : Brown marmorated stink bug (rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/brown-marmorated-stink-bug)
- EPPO Global Database : Halyomorpha halys, plantes hôtes (gd.eppo.int/taxon/HALYHA/hosts)
Favourite plants / resources
Related plant entries
Tomato
Central plant of the tomato guild. The neighbouring basil is reputed to hinder aphids through its volatile compounds.
Bean
A nitrogen-fixing legume: in symbiosis with Rhizobium bacteria housed in its root nodules, it fixes nitrogen from the air, first for itself; part of it returns to the soil as its roots and haulm decompose, mainly benefiting the following crops. It belongs to the Three Sisters: maize serves as its stake and squash blankets the ground at its feet. Climbing varieties occupy the vertical layer while dwarf ones fill the low storey, two ways of inhabiting the bed. Its flowers feed bees and bumblebees, and at season's end, cutting the plants at the collar and leaving roots and haulm in place returns part of the nitrogen to the soil; the nitrogen in the seeds leaves with the harvest. Grown ahead of hungry vegetables, it readily opens a rotation.
Maize (corn)
A living stake for the Three Sisters, maize raises the vertical storey around which the whole planting is organised: its sturdy stalk carries the climbing bean, which fixes nitrogen and returns part of it to the soil for the following crops, while the squash spreads a living mulch across the ground that curbs evaporation and weeds. A heavy feeder and thirsty by nature, it calls for rich, deep soil, something a rotation with legumes helps to prepare. Its tall silhouette can also serve as a windbreak or cast light shade over lower crops that suffer in the heat.
Sweet pepper
A fruiting nightshade, hungry for both warmth and fertility: it calls for rich soil and a well-exposed bed among the summer crops. Basil, a classic companion to both tomato and pepper, is reputed to keep certain pests away through its aromatic compounds, while the French marigold, in a dedicated, dense planting, reduces soil nematodes (see its own entry) and draws in beneficial insects. Its flowers are visited by bees and by hoverflies, whose larvae devour aphids. Like any nightshade, it belongs in a rotation that avoids following tomato or potato, so as not to concentrate the family's shared soil diseases (verticillium wilt, for instance). Finally, it is kept away from fennel, reputed to hinder its neighbours.