Brown marmorated stink bugs feed on an extraordinarily wide range of plants, with several hundred host species documented. They use needle-like mouthparts to pierce plant tissue and suck out the fluids inside, targeting fruits, seeds, leaves, and buds. Both adults and immature nymphs inject digestive enzymes into the plant as they feed, breaking down tissue from the inside so they can extract it as liquid. They do not bite humans or pets, do not suck blood, and do not eat wood or any household materials.
How They Feed
Unlike chewing insects that leave holes in leaves, stink bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts, essentially a thin, straw-like beak they push into plant tissue. Once inserted, they release enzymes that dissolve the cells around the feeding site, then drink up the resulting fluid. This is why stink bug damage often looks like discolored, sunken, or corky patches rather than missing chunks of leaf or fruit. The damage extends deeper than what you see on the surface.
Preferred Fruits and Vegetables
Brown marmorated stink bugs strongly prefer plants with fruiting structures, and that preference makes them a serious agricultural pest. Their favorite targets in orchards and gardens include apples, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, and sweet corn.
The damage looks different depending on the crop. On apples, feeding creates irregular sunken depressions on the skin, either dark green or black, with light brown, pithy flesh underneath. On peaches, early-season feeding causes dark blotches, sometimes with gummy sap oozing from the wound or distorted grooves called “cat-facing” across the fruit surface. Peaches hit later in summer develop water-soaked spots with white, corky tissue beneath.
Tomatoes, both red and green, develop cloudy blemishes on the surface with thick, white, corky tissue underneath the skin. Bell peppers show similar off-color, corky patches. Green beans get light green splotches, dead spots, and often secondary infections where the feeding wound opens the door to bacteria or fungi. On sweet corn, the bugs push their mouthparts straight through the husk to reach the developing kernels, sucking them dry and leaving irregular, shrunken ears.
Field Crops and Soybeans
Soybeans are a major target during pod fill, when seeds are developing inside the pods. Early feeding stops seeds from forming at all. Later feeding causes seeds to shrivel. The damage tends to be heaviest at field edges, creating a distinctive pattern farmers call “stay green” syndrome: the plants around the perimeter of the field hold onto their leaves and stay green long after the rest of the field has matured, because the feeding disrupts the plant’s normal timeline for dropping leaves and finishing its growth cycle.
Field corn is also vulnerable. Stink bugs pierce through the husk to reach developing kernels, leaving them shrunken and deformed.
Wild and Ornamental Host Plants
Outside of farms and gardens, brown marmorated stink bugs feed heavily on wild trees and shrubs. Multi-year surveys in North Carolina found the highest populations on tree of heaven, princess tree, southern catalpa, cherry, and porcelain-berry, all of which (except cherry) are invasive species. Removing invasive hosts like tree of heaven and porcelain-berry from your property can help reduce local stink bug numbers.
Native trees also serve as hosts, though they tend to attract fewer bugs. Flowering dogwood, yellow buckeye, black walnut, red maple, black locust, American sycamore, and wild blackberry all support stink bug feeding. Removing native species isn’t recommended since the tradeoff isn’t worth it.
Seasonal Feeding Patterns
Stink bugs don’t eat year-round. Adults overwinter in a dormant state called diapause, often inside homes, garages, sheds, or under bark. During this period they do not feed at all. This is why the ones that get into your house in fall aren’t actually eating anything inside, they’re just looking for a sheltered spot to ride out the winter.
When they emerge in spring, they immediately seek out developing flowers and fruits for nutrition before laying eggs. Landscape plants and trees near buildings are especially vulnerable to this spring wave because the bugs don’t have to travel far from their overwintering sites. Tree of heaven is a particularly important early-season host in forested areas.
As summer progresses, stink bugs shift toward agricultural crops as fruits and seeds develop. In warmer climates like Georgia, there are two generations per year: overwintering adults produce summer nymphs that mature by late July or August, and those summer adults produce a second generation of nymphs that grow into the next overwintering adults by September or October. This means crop damage can intensify through the growing season as populations build.
What They Don’t Eat
Brown marmorated stink bugs are strictly plant feeders. They do not bite people, sting, or feed on pets. They don’t bore into wood, damage furniture, or eat fabrics. The ones you find inside your home in winter aren’t feeding on anything at all. Their only real indoor nuisance is the pungent smell they release when disturbed or crushed, which is a defensive chemical, not a byproduct of feeding.