The Invasive Japanese Bettle

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Japanese beetles are an invasive species of beetle that can do wide damage to a number of plants that we tent do grow and enjoy around our houses. With their green / rust colored bodies, they can be quite pretty, however they are an incredible pain and very destructive. You can attack these beetles in many different points of their life cycle though some of the ways you deal with them may be more work then others. They make very short work of rose bushes and grape vines.

Adding milky spore to your lawn is a great way to deal with the beetle when it is still a grub.

Milky spore is a bacteria which is completely nutural and safe even with animals and children, and can be used around waterways. The grubs ingest this bacteria will ultimately destroy the grubs from the inside out. This also effect june bug grubs as well. When you eliminate the grube issue, you may notice that any problem with moles / voles goes away as well.

Once the Japanese beetles emerge as adults you have a few options for dealing with them. Some people decide to use pheromone traps. There are some disagreements about how effective these traps are. Some think since they can catch a bag full of beetles that it works. Some believe since they attract the beetle, that you actually invite more in your yard than you can catch, increasing your problems. Which is why it might not be a bad idea to fall back to picking the beetles.

Beetle picking has to be done by hand and can be a bit cumbersome. What you do is get a mason jar and fill it half way with soapy water and knock them off of the plant into your jar. Once the beetles die, simply dump the jar out and fill again. If you wish to gain the upper hand on them, you will need to do this daily.

It is quite unfortunate that this beetle has been introduced to the states and is now reeking havok from the east coast into the midwest.