Japanese Beatles are Eating My Crop

i've got a japanese or oriental beetle problem in my hop yard, i've got 30 plants over 120 ft. i've got three beetle traps evenly spaced, and i dont want to use any pesticides since my of my plants are putting on cones... any ideas?
how about planting something nearby that repels or attracts them?

WatereeBrew said:

i've got a japanese or oriental beatle problem in my hop yard, i've got 30 plants over 120 ft. i've got three beatle traps evenly spaced, and i dont want to use any pesticides since my of my plants are putting on cones... any ideas?
how about planting something nearby that repels or attracts them?

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Move your traps further (farther..whatever) away. Like to your neighbors yard.

You should be alright if you use a simple insecticidal soap. It can be used up to the day of harvest on almost anything in the garden.

The only way my wife found to get rid of them without using heavy pesticides was a spray bottle filled with a little detergent. Spray them and they fell, but then she had to drown them or they would just recover and fly off.

Definitely move the traps. They may kill 80% of what comes near them, but they attract many, many more. I like the idea of moving them to the neighbors.

BierMuncher said:

Move your traps further (farther..whatever) away. Like to your neighbors yard.

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agreed japanese beetle traps actually attract the beetles. The traps work best when it is one of your neighbors using them or if you have a far end of the yard you can put the trap in.

Don't those beetles eat aphids which destroy your hops? Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I read somewhere....


Edit:
Just did a bit of research. In my area of the states, people commonly confuse what we have here with the Japanese beetle. What we have here is an Asian lady bird beetle (lady bug). Guess it all depends on which part of the states you're in. Having real Japanese beetles can be a nightmare.

Wikipedia says:

During the larval stage, the Japanese beetle lives in lawns and other grasslands, where it eats the roots of grass. During that stage, it is susceptible to a fatal disease called milky spore disease, caused by a bacterium called milky spore, Paenibacillus (formerly Bacillus) popilliae. The USDA developed this biological control and it is commercially available in powder form for application to lawn areas. Standard applications (low density across a broad area) take from one to five years to establish maximal protection against larval survival (depending on climate), expanding through the soil through repeated rounds of infection, in-vers can be used to exclude the beetles, however this may necessitate hand pollination of flowers. Kaolin sprays can also be used as barriers.

Research performed by many US extension service branches has shown that pheromone traps may attract more beetles than they catch, and so they have fallen out of favor.[2] Natural repellents include catnip, chives, garlic, and tansy[3], as well as the remains of dead beetles. Additionally, when present in small numbers, the beetles may be manually controlled using a soap-water spray mixture.

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Lady bugs eat aphids. Japanese beetles eat the leaf material between the veins.

+1 on moving/removing the traps. They attract more than they kill.

Simply knock them off the plants with a strong jet of water, and dispose of them accordingly. Most insects can only be killed with spray insecticides when they are larval or pupal - i.e. soft bodied.

Two other "organic" things you can try.

Next year put in a bunch, I mean saturate the area with nasturtiums (sp). Japanese beetles hate them, they work very well when planted near rose bushes.

Second, while SWMBO is away take the blender pitcher out to the garden and fill it about 1/3 with live beetles picked off the plants. Take it into the house, fill the thing to about 1/2with water. Put it on the blender stand.

Rev it a couple times to stimulate hormone secretion among the trapped. Then set it on frappe and let it rip for a while. Transfer pureed bugs to spray bottle. Clean pitcher before SWMBO gets home. Spray affected plants with puree of scared bug.

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

Poindexter said:

Rev it a couple times to stimulate hormone secretion among the trapped. Then set it on frappe and let it rip for a while. Transfer pureed bugs to spray bottle. Clean pitcher before SWMBO gets home. Spray affected plants with puree of scared bug.

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Seriously? Have you tried this? Of course even if you are pulling our legs, I'm going to try it.

I used to live on the east coast and I"ve seen two Japanese Beetle swarms in my life and they were huge and absolutely tons of them all over the place. Surprised any plant life survived the attack that lasted a few weeks.

haha, i am reluctant to put japanese beatles anywhere near my blender, those things stink so bad they'll make a blind man scream armeggedon. and the smell just never goes away. I squash them with my fingers whenever I see them. I moved my beatle traps (3) to the other side of the field. but i've still got swarms, and they are jap beatles for sure.

Would it be worth adding Grub-Ex or some other grub pesticide to the lawn make a dent in the number of beetles that mature later on?

If you want to go organic, it will take a while to gain the upper hand, but it's possible. You might try Milky Spore: Milky Spore Powder 10oz - Japanese Beetles - Lawn Grub Control Or you could use chemicals, or even a combination to hit 'em hard & knock 'em down with chemicals, then switch to the organics. Either way, you might find this site useful: Japanese Beetle Control | Japanese Beetles Regards, GF.

I would get rid of your traps! They bring every beetle around! My hops were fine a few days ago and today the upper third of one of them is nothing but skelaton. Last year it was almost complete devistation. I hate the thought of insecticides in my beer. But what choice do we have? I am trying to think of a way to put some sort of netting around the plants. But it seems like it may be too late. Last years devistation took about a week and a half before there was not much left to eat! Even the cones are not safe. Good Luck! I know I could sure use some right now.

Last year Chicago had a really bad problem with Jap beetle. I used basic dish soap in a spray bottle and would go out and spray them and they would all die...Do not use a trap it only encourages more to come around..and I read they can sense each other up to miles away so remove them. I also noticed they loved my veggy garden and really didn't mess with my hop garden..so grow some veggies and they will leave your hop garden. They really love weeds..since of all the plants in my garden they ate up the weeds..some basil as well but that was about it.

Hope this helps..stay organic and do no use chemicals..just make a trip out to the hops every day with a soap gun and kill the little bastards. They are unable to fly and than breath so the soap kills them..I used to spray a bunch of them and than catch them in a container to remove them from the garden...I usually could kill 20 to 30 each day to keep them under control and after a few weeks I usually only found a few...



Jay

+1 on getting rid of the traps. Also, if you're going to avoid insecticides you will probably have to work pretty hard at getting rid of them and may lose some of your crop depending on how bad they are. They are tough little buggers.

I had a really bad japanese beetle problem for the last few years on some of the ornamental bushes in our landscaping. They would devour virtually the whole tree.

To truly eliminate the problem you should attack the source, and those are the grubs in the ground. After they are done eating all of your plants they will go under ground and lay their eggs. The eggs hatch in a few weeks and out come these little grubs that munch on your soil (they can also cause damage to your lawn and attract moles). The grubs will hang out in your soil until fall and then dig themselves deeper to hibernate through winter. Come spring the grubs move back up to eat a little more, go into their little pupae or whatever and turn into beetles right around this time of year again.

So if you want to solve your japanese beetle problem, kill the grubs! The female beetles will eat, then fly to the ground and lay a few eggs, and then fly back up to the leaves to eat some more and repeat until they have laid over 50 eggs. So if you kill a beetle, chances are the damage has already been done since the eggs have been laid and next year will be the same problem.

I don't know when the best time to apply a grub pesticide is in your specific area, but you might want to talk to your local nursery. But you want to kill the grubs not long after they hatch if you can since they are closest to the surface and easy to kill. That could mean now, or within the next week or two is the best time to apply.

After a few years of dealing with these little bastards the hard way, the year following my grub killing measures was virtually beetle free.

marubozo said:

I don't know when the best time to apply a grub pesticide is in your specific area, but you might want to talk to your local nursery. But you want to kill the grubs not long after they hatch if you can since they are closest to the surface and easy to kill. That could mean now, or within the next week or two is the best time to apply.

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+1 It is too late now for a grub killer to do any good. They only work on the young grubs. The grub killers need to be applied in the late summer or fall.

Another tip is to do any spraying at night. They will stay put at night while during the day, as soon as you start spraying, they start to fly away.

thanks for the replies, I took down the traps and chunked em in the garbage. I will definately look into grub control, and continue to take out beetles by hand. Im not even considering spraying chemicals on my developing hops, i've already picked 8 oz. so hopefully i'm just outgrowing the little suckers.

I think I may have found a safe alternative to sevin/chemicals.

I got out the old trusty pump sprayer and filled it with water (2 gallons I believe) and added probably 10 tablespoons of dawn dish detergent. Enough to make the water in the tank slightly blue. I then added a couple of tablespoons of cayanne pepper to the water and shook to mix.
Beatles starting falling off dead within minutes, the rest took off quickly and I haven't seen them back. Rain over the rest of the season should wash away any residue and POOF... safe hops.

As a nursery manager I know the damage they can do. No more traps and try to have your neighbors do the same. Sevin works the best but only on the adults and it will not do anything for the next generation. If your traps are new you may not have a lot of the overwintering immature in your yard. They eat grass roots until they molt into the mature beetles that you now have on your plants. The ground is the best control but hard and costly to manage. Your method may work best for now and never never slap one on your arm.

I did the water and liquid soap trick and it has worked like magic for 2 the last two days anyway. From what I read make sure you use liquid soap not liquid detergent, 2 tablespoons per quart of water.

discgolfin said:

Last year Chicago had a really bad problem with Jap beetle. I used basic dish soap in a spray bottle and would go out and spray them and they would all die...Do not use a trap it only encourages more to come around..and I read they can sense each other up to miles away so remove them. I also noticed they loved my veggy garden and really didn't mess with my hop garden..so grow some veggies and they will leave your hop garden. They really love weeds..since of all the plants in my garden they ate up the weeds..some basil as well but that was about it.

Hope this helps..stay organic and do no use chemicals..just make a trip out to the hops every day with a soap gun and kill the little bastards. They are unable to fly and than breath so the soap kills them..I used to spray a bunch of them and than catch them in a container to remove them from the garden...I usually could kill 20 to 30 each day to keep them under control and after a few weeks I usually only found a few...



Jay

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I work outdoors and have noticed that they tend to swarm on a few plants and leave the others alone. See if you can't get someone in the neighborhood to plant some of the following to keep them off your hops:

Onothera biennis (evening primrose)
-slightly invasive native (chicago) biennial plant with great smelling yellow flowers.

Desmodium spp. (all Tick Trefoil species)
-a native to Chicago, it's got some sticky seeds, but the leaves attract japanese beetles like none other.

They'll also eat giant ragweed, hollyhocks, and I seem to remember that they liked some Dame's rocket plants but not others. If I think of other plants, I'll let you know.