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Japanese beetles. Are they worth the fight for a homeowner?

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NNN0LHI Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-20-11 02:19 PM
Original message
Japanese beetles. Are they worth the fight for a homeowner?
About ten years ago my neighborhood was overrun by them. They were eating almost everything. Some bushes and small trees we had planted were covered with them. And they bite. My neighbors both had some nice mature hedges in full bloom that they just loved to eat. The three of us got to work trying to eradicate them and save our greenery but it was a losing battle. Think we did more damage to ourselves using the watered down nerve agent we were using to kill them with. Made me dizzy every time I used the stuff.

Seemed about the time we just about thought we had them whooped they came back with a vengeance. Worse than before. They finally killed just about everything green with leaves on it we had planted. The hedges were all dead as were our bushes and small trees.

We all finally gave up and yanked out what was left of what they liked eating and replaced it with pines, ferns and some other stuff that they won't eat.

The beetles won. It wasn't worth the fight. Wasn't even close. Take this advice from someone with some first hand experience.

Don

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle

Japanese beetle

The beetle species Popillia japonica is commonly known as the Japanese beetle. It is about 15 millimetres (0.6 in) long and 10 millimetres (0.4 in) wide, with iridescent copper-colored elytra and green thorax and head. It is not very destructive in Japan, where it is controlled by natural predators, but in America it is a serious pest of about 200 species of plants, including rose bushes, grapes, hops, canna, crape myrtles, and others.

It is a clumsy flier, dropping several centimeters when it hits a wall. Japanese beetle traps therefore consist of a pair of crossed walls with a bag underneath, and are baited with floral scent, pheromone, or both. However, studies done at the University of Kentucky suggest traps attract more beetles than they actually trap, thus causing more damage along the flight path of the beetles and in the vicinity of the trap than may have occurred if the trap were not present.

These insects damage plants by skeletonizing the foliage, that is, consuming only the leaf material between the veins.

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CC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-11 12:45 AM
Response to Original message
1. We used to have them bad here.
I used the beetle traps with a pheromone bait. First summer we had full bags in no time(daily). Second summer took a week or more to fill the bags and the third summer we hardly had any beetles. Haven't used them since and it has been at least 15 years. I would get more if I see any again. If you ever decide to try again I would recommend giving them a try. I used one called Bag-A-Bug. I never used any poison on my yard so if it wasn't the bags don't know what else could of gotten rid of them.



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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-11 02:01 PM
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2. Those things are brutal and will defoliate and kill shrubs and trees
so you do need to fight the little suckers. Chances are you sprayed too late last year and they'd already laid sufficient eggs to be back this year.

A better bet is to combine lawn spraying and early foliage spraying. This year, the best you can do is spray the adults at ground level. Start planning now to kill the grubs under lawns during the winter and the newly emerged beetles in spring before they have a chance to mate.

Here's a great site with all you need to know: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef451.asp
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WhiteTara Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-23-11 10:49 PM
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3. So, are you saying
that by changing out the exotics for the natives, you had foliage?
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NNN0LHI Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-26-11 05:55 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Now that I have thought about it that is probably about right
Most of what we now have planted is native stuff. The only leafy trees that the beetles never bothered was our group of about ten Osage Orange trees which are native to America. Nothing ever bothers them. They ate everything else. I don't think I have ever seen even an ant crawling on them.

I think you may be right about this. The beetles seemed to like the taste of fruity or sweet smelling plants the best. We had a mature pear tree and they ate that up fast.

Don
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Kolesar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-24-11 11:51 AM
Response to Original message
4. Milky spore kills the grubs in the larval stage in the fall.
www.milkyspore.com

I have not used it yet. I am going to apply some before this fall. There is a granualated form for use with a regular drop spreader. The powder is hard to apply. You need a special spreader.

Milky spore adds microbes to the garden that get higher in population every year.
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trud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-24-11 09:06 PM
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5. how bout vacuuming them up
just a thought. Then put the paper vac bags in tightly tied trash bags.
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NNN0LHI Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-26-11 06:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. Talking about millions of them
And they eat night and day. If they aren't eating they are mating. Sometimes they mate and eat at the same time. And they bite.

I think it is best to just take out what they eat because they will kill it anyway and replace it with stuff they don't eat myself.

Haven't seen one since we did that.

Don
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