Aurora IL, Japanese Beetle Spotted

More or less letting the other hop growers in the Chicagoland area know what's up.

I saw a lone beetle under a leaf of my Cascade. I checked my other hops, I found more on my Mt. Hood. Just like last year, they seem to love Mt. Hood and Cascade, but not a single one on my Chinook. To bitter for them? I dunno.

While some people hate pheromone traps, I set mine out and have good luck with them. I also decided to spray my hops, flushing my 'organic' status down the toilet. Figured the label is essentially a point of pride. Since I have none, who cares.

HAHA! Thanks for the warning. I will let you know how my Potato, bean, and rose "distractions" work this year.

I also planted a lot of companion/trap plants, but I suspect that since it's first year for these plants and some have barely sprouted, that I won't reap the rewards until next year. I will be curious how well they work and look forward to your 'report'.

My cousin e-mailed me and told me 'what you should have done is make your yard bird friendly, they eat the grubs while they are still on the ground'. Now he tells me. Sounds like another hobby! Erg.

Those grubs are far too deep for a bird to impact. And only certain birds eat them. Seeing as how you are in suburbia (as am I) you don't really have a space for a purple martin house. That's probably your best bet if that's your goal.

I put out seed and have a bird bath and it doesn't seem to make much difference. This year might be a bit skewed because of the 3-week early spring we had. Most people (uincluding myself) planted at roughly the normal time, but the hops are 3 weeks further along and the ground temps are as well, meaning the beetle hatch will be earlier than normal and your companion plants won't be as big as usual.

My pole beans are waist high and will be head high in a week or 2. I would expect they will be sufficiently sized to attract the beetls and the rose bush will certainly have no problem as a beetle beacon.

Benificial Nematodes and White Spore.

The nematodes are good for 10 years and improve their numbers as the food supply is increased. The spores take about 3 years to achieve maximum potential.

The nematodes are predatory specific whereas the spore is not. Both attack the grub where it sleeps and destroy it either from the inside out or outside in. Meaning, unless they come form someones elses yard they don;t stand a chance to become beetles.

I would get them so thick that just before suymmer as the air cooled at dusk the ground would be buzzing with them. Now, not so much. I generally only find them bashing their skulls against the artificial sun.

They have started to show up here now too. They don't seem to bother my hops, but they devour our grape vines which are next to the hops.

....oh, and our peaches too.

Thanks for the warning. I'll keep an eye out in Joliet.

I'm in Oswego and I just noticed this morning that some of my leaves on my Centennail were a little beat up. I thought beetles but I looked closely at the leaves and had some type of what I would call caterpillar on the back of the leaves: black about 1/4" long and much smaller in diameter. A few little guys but looked to have a nice appetite. Just thought I would mention since this is a bit of a local post. Any ideas what they are and how to combat them?

Not sure what you have, curious if any one else could chime in wt. ideas.

Dammit to hell.

I thought beetles but I looked closely at the leaves and had some type of what I would call caterpillar on the back of the leaves: black about 1/4" long and much smaller in diameter. A few little guys but looked to have a nice appetite.

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I have had the same thing on the undersides of my leaves. Killed about 20 of them, mostly on my cascade. Any ideas?

My Mom was saying that spraying soapy water on the plants would keep Japanese beetles away; it would be a lot better than using insecticide if this is true. Does anyone have experience with this?

edit --- post 1934: the year my Dad was born. On Father's Day this is appropriate but weird.

I've heard about the soapy water, but haven't tried it. I have pheromone traps out and I did spray with vegtable safe insecticide. It has reduced my bugs greatly, but has not got rid of all of them. The earwigs don't seemed phased. Therefore I'm going to whip up some soapy water this week and try it. When I do, I'll report back in.

Caterpillers? Well, if you have any number of Moths or Butterflies in your area you will have caterpillers. And they do so love to munch on hops and do so with great efficiency.

Catterpiller have but one function. To eat! And eat, and eat, and eat until they are readu to go into a pupea stage before the change.

Soapy water and a hard eye are the best tools for these things.

Another trick is to lightly water your hops daily by shooting the undersides of the leaves. This will either knock the bugs off or show you where they are.

when you find a catterpillar, knock it off and slice it in two.

Japanese beetle?

SCHWING!

I set out some (4) traps today and they were swarming before I could hang them up...always having sex on the way to their execution...:rockin:

Soap does effect them something fierce. I have one of the traps bottom cut open and they fall into a bucket of soapy water. It's all she wrote.

They ate up some of the (wild) grape leaves and only one of my hop plants a couple of feet from the top.

If it's hot again tomorrow there should be some massive suicides taking place.

I saw one on my Chinook plant over here last week, but I don't see any more...

I noticed my first couple beetles today. One on my hops, one on my beans, and one on my rose bush.

Im on the Ia/Il border just south of Wi, I went out of town for a week came back and half of my leafs were ate. Only on two of my 10 plants though, I set up some traps hoping to kill those bastards.

If you all could keep laying out those traps that would be great! I have a couple - I'm scoping out a place to put them, AWAY FROM MY PROPERTY.

Pheromone traps not working as well as last year, but soapy water is working. Primary issue with soapy water is vigilance. It works every time, but I need to do it often, sometimes every day. I have 17 plants (lost one), I'm spending a lot of time walking around, even getting on a ladder, spraying plants. I'll do it, just pointing out the time involved.

Seperate from that, I've spotted cones developing on my strongest plants.

I spray Orthene before burs and Pyrethin after burs. I don't care if I'm, "Organic".

I'll look into both of those. For me, "Organic" is bragging rights. I've already sprayed once, so I can't call this years hops "Organic", but I figured I could try some organic stuff just to see how it works. If didn't work well, the sprays would come out.

I have the cardinals and grackles chasing them around and snacking on them, but I am guessing they will be tired of beetles by the time they are really swarming.

I was up in the tops last night picking some early cones and saw a few beetles and several leaves pretty well chewed. Also found one caterpillar... doh!! Didn't look like any of the usual mass-damage-causing worms like cutworms of cabbage worms, so I am hoping it's just a lonely moth caterpillar as we have a few white moths we've seen around.

Not far from you guys, but I haven't seen a beetle yet (knock on wood). I have a river birch that they completely love and it is vacant to this point. Retrofit maybe your bags are keeping them from house Also, haven't seen any more micro caterpillars.

Yet, they love my birch and my beans are far enough along that they are on them like flies on ****. Not too many yet.

Oach, want me to drive some over? Any cones yet? You gotta see my Chinnook, baby cones, 20 odd feet high, two seperate bines are going wide, getting tied together, just a huge mess of Chinnook hopness. Which is a good thing.

a hell of a forth for me... arrived home after a rest at the cabin only to find the little bastards happily munching away on all 6 of my plants... just about wiped me out last year, here we go again

Just saw my first one on the hops this morning. But I have killed about 25 off my saint johns wort bush. Happy to know that they prefer that!

Along the same lines, I found 4 Japanesse beetles on my marigolds this morning. Gave'em a spray with some pet-safe spray, which they didn't seem to appreciate.

someone needs to invent some sort of sonic device that drives them away.... I really don't want to spray my hops and I don't have the patience to sit there and pick em off....

Showed up here as well. Sprayed my hops with Safer Soap.... if that doesn't work, I'll use Sevin.

I saw one in my hop garden in MI a few days ago. I tried to pick it up to kill it but it flew away. I haven't seen any more of them since.

Here in the Carolina's we have had Japanese Beetles for years. Typically we spray Bug-B-Gone on our plants to get rid of the beetles. But I'm not sure you would want that on your hops plants. You might want to look for a trap such as this one, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BPEZUK/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. Place it away from your hops and the beetles will tend to go for the trap instead of the hops.

I'm having a lot of success with soapy water, but I have to go out there a lot. The Japanese Beetles seem almost equally interested in everything else I'm growing, so the damage to my hops is much less than it could be.

On a seperate note, about half my hops have small buds on them. Hops are a coming!

I knocked about 20 at one time off my pole bean leaves into my hand and killed them in one fell swoop.... SLAAAAAAAAP!

I do have some chewage on the tops of my hops and beans, but so far they have not emerged at past year's strength and so far not a big deal. Have seen the cardinals and grackles snacking on them though.

I'm only a 2nd year home grower, so far the Japanese Beetles are less obtrusive than last year. So I agree on that observation.

Retrofit said:

I'm only a 2nd year home grower, so far the Japanese Beetles are less obtrusive than last year. So I agree on that observation.

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Yes, last two years were bad but this year I hardly see any. Got hit hard with another large 1" + flying beetle last year (June Bugs??) but they are rare too. Grasshoppers are crazy this year though, have eaten about 1/3 of my pepper plants to the bone, never even touched them in the past.

Great. I think I saw one last night, but it there was not enough light to see the coloration and the thing was like an inch long.

I think my cat was toying with one last year.

An inch long is WAAAAAY too big for a Japanese beetle. They are about half that size.