Randar

Recipes 

Interesting. I have a maple that I didn't think they were attacking but when I applied some topical pesticide via hose-attached spray bottle to the foliage a swarm of them flew out of that damn tree. I had no idea they were even on it.

bierhaus15

Recipes 

Whatever you do, DO NOT use those yellow-lawn japanese beetle traps!!! All those things are doing is sending out pheromones that lure every japanese beetle in your neighborhood to the vicinity of those traps. And while the trap might kill 2% of those it attracts, the ones it doesn't are going to have one hell of a time feasting on all those plants you were trying to protect. As someone who owns a landscape/garden buisness, it drives me to holy hell when some ignoramus puts up three of those things in their 1 acre yard and then b*tches to me why japanese beetles are eating up all their plants. And if your neighbor is stupid enough to use those things up, then sorry but you now know why you have a japanese beetle problem.

//end rant//

conpewter

Recipes 

...thus giving them to neighbors several doors down... I'm not evil enough to actually do that though.

__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V

Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash

sbsam

Recipes 

a neem oil extract is something to consider. they sell the concentrate or a spray.

Optimal

Recipes 

this might sound a little out there but has anyone tried building a bat box? I don't know about where you are but if you look up around here at night bats are all over the place.

Retrofit

Recipes 

I agree that pheremone traps ATTRACT Japanese Beetles. However I had great success using them to SAVE MY HOPS! In the course of two days the Japanese Beetles eating my hops moved to the traps and died a slow humiliating death. I think the key issue is placement. Imagine an "L". My hops are the vertical part of the L. The horizontal line was 10' North of my hop beds. GREAT SUCCESS. Plan to use them this year again because the saved my hops!

Sorry to counter. I can see how they could screw things up, but not for me.

bierhaus15

Recipes 

Yep. Placement is key. Neighbors yard, abandoned field, community hippie garden....

Though in all seriousness, I still wouldn't stick one of those things within 1000 feet of any of my plants. Save a hop plant, kill your shrubbery. Yet, some people do say they work for them. I don't doubt that entirely, it's just that there are far better ways of dealing with japanese beetles then using those things. Also, geography has a lot to do with it. Here in the NE we get a LOT more insect activity then elsewhere, as we usually get lots of rain early in the spring followed by hot summers. And months of lush greenery. Makes for one hell of a japanese beetle breeding ground.

pawtucketpatriot

Recipes 

I've been using nicotine: I take my cigar ends and my girlfriends cigarette ends and soak them in a gallon of water. I leave the jug out in the sun and let it brew like sun tea. After a day or 2 I filter it into a sprayer and spray my plants. Been working pretty good. Going to put down the oil by my plants this year as well after reading about it!

jgln

Recipes 

Can you make a list of pests this has been effective on?

pawtucketpatriot

Recipes 

I'm guessing just about any pest from ants to aphids to japanese beetles. I noticed that my plants where starting to be the main course in the yard and a friend told me about the concoction: started using it and whatever was eating my plants stopped (never did get a visual on the bastards!).