From: dmiller@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Dick and Jill Miller)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Japanese Beetles everywhere
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:39:38 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT

Fred Rump asks:

> All of a sudden we are being invaded by these little brown critters. They seem 
> to love my marigolds. I quickly bought two beetle traps and they are slowly 
> filling up. I put one right next to this large container I have with various 
> flowers in it but with a big yellow marigold in the middle. I see 10 to 20 
> beetles sitting there at any one time - all the time. Are some Japanese beetles
> not turned on by a beetle trap with its sweet smell?
> 
> These buggers are eating my flowers. Should I spray with something?
> 
> fred

If there are just a few Japanese beetles it is quite easy to hand pick them 
and either drop them in kerosene (my Dad's favorite method) or snap their 
heads off (my favorite method, then they fertilize my sandy soil which need 
all the help it can get).

With kerosene you put the kerosene in a can and hold the can under the 
beetle while tapping the flower.  You end up with a can of kerosene full of 
beetles which you have to dispose of.  With all the haz-waste regulations 
these days I prefer to avoid that problem.

If you put your hand UNDER the flower where a beetle is sitting and tap the 
flower nine times out of ten the beetle will fall off into your hand.  If 
it is VERY hot out the bugger may fly instead of dropping, but their usual 
method of escaping is to plummet to the earth (or your hand).  Then you 
grab it up and push its head BACK over its back (I use the back of my 
thumbnail) and drop it on the ground.

Either method works unless you have tremendous numbers of beetle or a huge 
garden, then you can go with the traps to get them down to managable 
numbers, or follow some of Mike Langston's advice about chemicals.  
Personally, I prefer to stay a long way away from things like Sevin.  But 
then I don't have gazillions of the buggers.  I'm not in a farming area 
where there are huge areas of one crop (well in the suburbs lawn is a big 
crop :') ) and we don't have humoungous infestations.  When we first moved 
into our house there were several semi-humoungous infestations and I 
applied Doom to the lawn (see below).  Now we never see huge numbers of 
them.

Since the beetles seem to prefer some plants (wild primrose, grape, 
marigold, rose, to name a few) you usually only have to go to a few spots 
in your garden to get them all.  Some people even plant 'trap crops', 
species that the beetles like best, to lure them to one spot for 
beetle-cide.

For long-term control there is a powder which contains a disease, milky 
spore disease, which you sprinkle on your lawn.  The beetles spend their 
youth (more than a year, but I'm not sure if its 2 or 3) in your lawn 
eating your grass roots.  By the way, this is why you see little 1" holes 
made by skunks which like to eat Jap. beetle grubs.  Anyway, this powder 
(Doom is one commercial name) is a disease specific to Japanese beetles.  
It takes a few years to build up in the soil, but ever after you will have 
only a few beetles.

Hope this helps not only Fred, but others who are battling beetles.

--Jill Miller
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