Penn State recently announced in a press release that the university had received a $7.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to advance its research ventures on how to combat the spotted lanternfly.

The grant will be matched for more than $5 million from growers and landowners who have already been gathering and producing research on the issue. The lanternfly is threatening the agricultural world at an alarming rate.

The grant is designed to support a four-year initiative with numerous goals on how to better understand the behavior of the spotted lanternfly, and how to use this knowledge to eliminate the species. One goal is to quantify this impact on at-risk crops and create a control plan to manage the negative effects.

The grant then plans to use these management solutions to share with crop-stakeholders and other land-grant universities, as well as the USDA and the Northeastern IPM Center.

If Penn State is looking for some ideas of how best to use this funding, researchers should look no further than some of our suggestions.

“I am extremely grateful to the USDA for this funding as well as the growers and landowners who pledged to allow us use of their farms for this project,” said Project Head and College of Agricultural Sciences Associate Professor Julia Urban in the release.

The grant will allow for the opportunity for collaboration from universities and organizations all along the East coast. Penn State will work in collaboration with the USDA, Virginia Tech, the University of Delaware, the University of Rhode Island, Temple University, and Rutgers University.