As the UK summer gets underway, many Brits will be getting out and about in nature. Many of us will be hoping to find our green spaces teeming with life.
And it's at this time of year that you might notice an odd "spittle" on garden plants. Householders and gardeners are being warned that the substance could help spread a plant disease, Yorkshire Live reports.
You may have seen it clumped on plant stems or in a patch of grass and wondered what it is. It looks like a ball of froth, or foam, a bit like someone has spat on your plants. So what is that ball of spit on your plants and is it harmful?
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The spittle, as it's known, is made by an insect called a spittlebug, so named because it produces the weird frothy substance that then gets left behind on plants and in long grass. The spittlebug coats itself in a ball of foam for protection as it sucks on the sap from a plant for nutrition.
The red and black creature's offspring, also known as froghoppers, then hatch on a plant which has the leftover ball of foam. The insect is usually active from the end of May to the end of June, so it's peak season for sightings right now.
Though the insects feed on the plants, they don't remove enough nutrition to harm it and they don't hurt humans, so you don't need to do anything to get rid of the spittle. Given that insect numbers have reduced by as much as 60 per cent in the past 10 years alone according to studies in the UK, it's actually an extremely good sign to see insects breeding in gardens.
However, scientists are worried that a plant disease known as Xyella could be spread between plants by the spittlebug as a carrier. If it is found in the UK, all plants within a 100m radius would need to be destroyed, with a 5km plant quarantine for up to five years afterwards because the disease could wipe out native UK plant species.
And because the spittlebug is a potential carrier of the disease, scientists are asking people to report any sightings of the spittlebug spittle, just in case, so that any outbreaks that do occur could be linked and tracked to what causes them.
A spokesman for the Spittlebug survey said: "Please let us know when you see either spittle, nymphs (juveniles) or adults of the xylem-feeding insects (spittlebugs / f roghoppers and some leafhoppers ) that have the potential to act as vectors of the bacteria. These records will help us build up a picture of where the bugs are found, what plants they feed on and how much they move around. This information will be essential for deciding how best to respond should the Xylella bacterium arrive in the UK."
You can report a sighting here: https://www.spittlebugsurvey.co.uk/how-to-survey-for-xylem-feeding-ins
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