I had the same problem 20 years ago when the beetles first made it to southern Illinois. Our backyard was over the fence from a soybean field that the beetles just loved. Initial attempts to use the Spectricide bag traps of the day did not work well, because they filled up within an hour, resulting in them meeting up, mating and flying off. Also, the traps seemed to attract more beetles to the yard than were there before putting them up, so placing them far away from their favorite plants is a good strategy. Putting the trap over a 45-gallon trash drum filled part way with soapy water was an improvement. I would dump the barrel each evening and refill it. The skunks, opossums and rat snakes enjoyed the feast. What really did the trick was replacing the tiny bag with a tube of plastic bag material long enough to ensure that the beetles entering the trap would be guided to a watery demise. Just using a longer, large capacity bag worked wonders too. The bags had to weigh over 30 pounds each. They do stink though when caught in those quantities. You are correct that keeping their numbers down does help from year to year. One other thing I noticed is that it took the native birds a while to develop a taste for the beetles. The cardinals in particular seem to have developed a taste for them, and I often see them working their way through our vines to find them.
wow thanks for sharing all your experience - i keep dreaming of some sort of rig where i can funnel the beetles through the trap into a tube like you say and then have that tube go into a dish in the chicken coop where they get served for breakfast lunch and dinner!!! I just need to be confident that my chickens would eat them in those numbers lol! it seems like such a waste of protein! Yeah i haven't seen the native birds too interested in our garden, it might be due to the jucier grasshoppers but we had finches in our sunflowers this year so maybe they got a closer look at the beetles and tried a couple!! here is hoping!
Im in Ontario and 3 years ago was the first time I've ever seen or heard of these guys, they sure seem to love pole beans and whatever vine grows on my fences! Wasn't until this year that I noticed the finches here finally getting a taste for them as well. Hopefully the other birds will catch on. Also, thanks for the video. Was leery of using the traps if it was going to attract more of them to our yard but think it's time to try them out. Although doing it by hand can be cathartic, it becomes so tedious after awhile...
I don’t understand why milky spore was not mentioned. It is fabulous for keeping down numbers. It also spreads naturally. I tend to reapply every few years to boost it, but it does work wonders!
FIY: The horticulturist here where I live said those traps need to be hung FAR away from your garden area, else you will cause those beetles to be attracted to your garden plants. He said to always be mindful where you are hanging them, (not too close to a neighbors garden)... that would cause someone else trouble.... but mainly, you don't want to put those traps in your garden area or anywhere near it. The idea is to lure the beetles AWAY from your garden and to end up in the bag. The attractant in the lure is Geranium oil.
Yes at least 20 ft down wind because they will flock to everything close to it. We made that mistake. We have a grape vine and a lot of hibiscus and foliage around and that's why we bought them. but her bags seem to be the best I've seen, ours don't open at the bottom but these have been a real life saver for us and our grape vines!
You are totally right! We put up the traps last year exactly as suggest on the package---far away from our garden and we had the worst infestation we've ever had! No more traps for us! I'll try something else.
@@susanbutler3429 It is extremely tedious but handpicking is the best. I walk my garden, which is huge, 3X a day with a bucket of soapy water and drowned them. I am retired but I would prefer to do other things.
I have found that planting Buckwheat close to and within gardens so they are flowering early and all summer the buckwheat attracts beetle predators and the beetle population drop dramatically. More pollinators and birds are in the garden. Those look like very good traps, and they plan for a big 'harvest'.
Thats really interesting!! Ive tried a few trap crops but never thought of predator insects- one other lady on here said she ordered assassin bugs to unleash in the garden- i didnt know they eat the beetles!
You are so right about seeing one or two one year and then a mass the next. I tend to let most critters live their little lives, but I finally let my young peach trees fruit this year and they decimated the fruit just before it was ripe enough to pick. They chewed right through the organza bags i had put on the fruits. I'm going to try these traps.
they chewed through the organza bags ???!!!! The first year i saw these beetles ( me being from the UK) i didn't know what they were, and there were a small cluster on a young walnut tree - i thought wow what pretty beetles and took a photo and walked off !! lol - that soon changed into "this is war"!!!
I have done a ton of research on whether or not to use traps. I copy and pasted this article I found... The University of Missouri and Lincoln University have found two things that are key to making the traps effective. What they say is that you must make sure you have a large container to trap the beetles in. The second important step is to not put it by the plants but instead, around the perimeter of the area you are trying to protect. You also want to make sure that the traps are spaced no further than 200 feet apart so that you have a continuous perimeter of the lure scent to attract the beetles. By placing them in a perimeter around your property it means that Japanese beetles emerging from the soil are attracted to the edge of your property instead of towards the plants you are trying to protect. Also, those flying in from neighboring properties are intercepted and trapped before they get to your plants. If you have a relatively small property, such as a regular city lot, with the 200 foot spacing you may only need one or two traps. You would place the traps on either end of your property and or the place farthest from the things you are trying to protect. Having a large container to hold the beetles that fall in the trap helps deal with the issue of them filling up too fast and makes it more feasible to empty the containers as needed. To read rest of article - www.givinggrove.org/blog-reference/guest-post-japanese-beetle
solid information thankyou for sharing! I've played around with the perimeter and for us i think there is so little distance between the woodland ( where i think they come from) and the garden ( where they land) we have just been swarmed by mass numbers until this year and i couldn't tell if placing the traps further away was helping... this year we had the traps about 15ft from the garden but about 200ft apart and have defintely collected a good number but not in the quantities like last year so im hoping thats to do with "less beetle babies" after trapping the adults from year to year! We are planning to move the chickens closer to the garden and i'd love to develop a system where the beetles are funnelled down a pipe into a dish of water for the chickens to self serve!!
I LOVE the beetle bags you have! Ours are different and they dont open at the bottom so we have to empty ours every other day and its stinky and messy but i am about to go buy some of your linked bags now! We have grape vines and a lot of hibiscus plants around our house and these bags have been a life saver! We have discarded hundreds and thousands of these beetles and they seem to fill to the brim every other day. Your video was very informative so thanks for all the research you've done and relayed to us in this vid! Oh, and we have to put them atleast 20 ft down wind of our grapes, flowers and trees and we just hang them on our fence but im going to get a hook like you have so i can place them exactly where i want! Tha ks!
It may depend on where you live. My garden ( in southern Ontario Canada) had petunias and holes were eaten through the blooms, daily. I spent three hours a day through the entire season, and all my planters are full of those eggs. I’m slowly reclaiming the dirt and getting rid of the grubs.
I live in town but have always had Japanese Beetle problems d/t my rose bushes. I let my neighbors put out those bags and attract the beetles to their properties:) I have put the grub killer in my grass for a couple years. This year I hardly saw any beetles on my flowers - at least partly because one day I noticed movement in my grass, went to check it out, and realized I was seeing beetles emerging from the ground! I got real busy killing them before they could get any further.
Lol! Yes attract them away!! Whenever im gardening and i find the grubs i throw them to my ducks- now whenevr im digging anywhre my ducks follow me around expectantly!
Japanese Beetle traps just add to the problem. I used them for a few years and just got more beetles. I don't use them anymore. I'm using Milky Spore. It works!
The pheromones in the traps attract male beetles. The females will follow. If the females that follow have been mated the you end up with lots of eggs in your yard/garden.
Funny how I didn't know you have this problem in your country and it broke my heart and then saw someone did invent something to stop and manage it and it calmed me down. I wish your and the earth the best. ❤
Yes, these pests are now in north America. They are not natural to our ecosystem in America. So they don't have to deal with their natural preditors in their native environment. They are very destructive.
I had lot of them this year. They gone after my weeping cherry trees, roses, hibiscus and yellow petunias. I couldn’t believe they gone after the yellow petunias. I also found them in my vegetable garden, especially the beans, cucumbers and squash. I noticed some of them on the arborvitae tress. They are so nasty, so I used trap bags and hand picked them into soapy water. I learned recently that they don’t like garlic water so will give it a try next year. I wish I could get them under control at my property because I do think they are pretty.
They seem to enjoy this hot humid weather we are having! Keep going with the trap bags- my thinking is that they have to tail off eventually 🫣 it creates a lot of extra work but i believe we can get on top of them with a multi faceted approach! They went after my beans and my raspberries earlier in the season and now on my sweet potatoes 🤷🏼♀️
This year is so incredibly bad for me with those beetles last year I hardly had any and if I saw them I would remove them and squish them. But this year they are just taking over. They have taken my morning glory, my roses, green beans, and marigolds. I have found them on my other plants but they have not attacked them like how they did with those other plants or not at all. Thanks for making this video it really helps me to figure out what to do next.
I hope it helps give you some strings! Last year was awful for us so i went ALL out to get rid of them- and i refuse to use chemicals! It does create a bunch of work which is awful in this heat- i also recently bought some large next which i plan to get set up for next year!!! Keep using trap bags- remember every beetle you trap and kill can not make more beetles 💪🏼
Thanks for the video. I'm here in San Diego. We have a fig tree that attracts the big green Japanese beetles. I will pick up the fallen figs and encourage people on the property to pick them off the tree. We also have hibiscus shrubs full of whitefly so I'm dealing with that too. Again, thanks for your video.
Thank you for this video! I've been battling Japanese Beetles since we moved into our home a few years ago. The plants they seem to be most attracted to for me are our roses, hardy hibiscus, rose of sharon, black berries, raspberries, and marigolds. I purchased some traps like the ones in your video and they seem to work alright. I definitely still have to go around and get them off the plants myself. I might also try the grub killer this fall to see if that makes more of a difference. I also started my first veggie garden this year and have dealt with pretty much all of the "bad bugs" so it has been an exhausting experience just trying to manage pests without using a bunch of sprays and chemicals.
I hear you! Keep going- i think what you are doing will break the back of the cycle… definitely treat the ground, “milky spore” is a ground application specific for japanese beetles - keep the traps going and keep hand picking! I’ll be interested to know how the situation looks next year !
I garden organically. I only use organic fertilizer, never spray with pesticides. Focus on soil health and keep adding lots of organic matter and it will get better, I promise. I grow sunflowers, the birds eat the seeds and eat bugs while visiting. Grow lots of flowers around your garden and you will create a habitat for beneficial insects who will go after the bad bugs. This year I put mint leaves every other day around my squash plants and cucumbers and it helped deter squash and cucumber beatles. This is my 5th year in this garden and my soil gets better every year and this was my best season yet! Hang in there!
I've had extensive discussion with our state extension agents about the traps and they are clear that the traps are not good for backyard use. They bring more beetles in. I've convinced my neighbors to not use them. We're having much better luck with 3X/year use of milky spore.
I think each area probably needs assessment based on circumstances - if we hadnt uses the traps the beetles would have come anyways because they breed in the woodland that surrounds us. The traps attract them yes but the beetles also attract each other so once you have them in your garden then they just attract their mates! Milky spore is good- i had someone else write in to say they used milky spore, sprayed their crops with Kaolin clay and also used nematodes so im trying that this year!!! Thanks for sharing what you learned 👌🏻
i use the same traps ... they work like a champ ... every beetle in the bag is a beetle not eating or reproducing ... and every year i seem to see fewer and beetles.
Cut the bottom off the trap bag and put the trap over a 5 gallon bucket with water and a few drops of dish soap. Replace with another ready bucket as needed. Dump when bugs are fully deceased. Be diligent 3-4 years and you will break the cycle. Saved our trees and gardens when others were lost. Yes we absolutely attracted our neighbors beetles, thank God, because they did nothing but complain about my trapping. Ended their problem too. You’re welcome.
boom!! love it!!! I was going to do exactly what you said with the bucket but i wish i'd known that last year! - this year its been 10x better so haven't filled a bag once yet - but i'll keep going - i want NOT one remaining !!
the company advertises them as "seasonal" its supposed to last the whole season that the beetles are around. I have just replaced a trap after 2 months but we have had barely any rain. Last year we had more rain and it did reduce the efficiency of the trap. Now if i know a big rain is coming i take the trap off the stand and hang it in a shed until the rain clears.
Thanks so much for sharing! It's nice to have a big property that you can put the traps far away from the garden. I've always found that pheromone traps backfire. I have a huge India Moth problem from just one trap that attracted every India Moth in the county. Buckets with pound on seals are the only thing that can keep them out of food or feed.
They 🪲and the grubs make great fish bait 🐠🐟 We have birds here... Ibis I think... that have long beaks to get deep in the sandy soil and feast on the grubs..
I hand pick and have a bucket of dawn soap water. I use landscape fabric in my garden now and it stops 50% of bugs.slugs,potato beetles and Japanese beetles. I spray my fruit trees
A farm market owner / organic grower taught me to sprinkle a little sea salt on the snow around the plants that the japanese beetles usually eat. I’m not sure if it kills the grubs or if it changes the taste of the plant so the beetles no longer want it. Only a little salt. Too much salt can make the soil infertile.
Great video, thank you & trying the trap for the first time this year. Big backyard but will try just one trap this year and will move it around the perimeters every other day. Only been 2 days and trap already works well, just not as many beetles as I was expecting. But I was also late in buying trap. The beetles were already out and about for a few days. But best to do something than nothing at all.
I've found applying Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Hb nematodes) to the soil in the spring and fall really helps with grubs. Do your homework on application, as they are very sensitive to light, temperature and soil moisture.
The beneficial nematodes killed off about 95 percent of my beetles. I have to dig many, many shovels of dirt in my large garden before I even find one!
Your right, last year I killed in the bags and by hand about 8 t0 10 thousand, this year after a month maybe a thousand total but I stay up on them, I live in mid michigan. next year I will put a lot of grub killer down around the lawn brown spots and see if that helps. Great video.
thankyou ! Sounds like you are winning the war! Thats my strategy also - sooner or later the population curve has to flatten right!! I'm all in favour of drawing them out and bagging them! lol - my weird hobby!
Using a grub killing product on the lawn is the most important thing in killing future Japanese beetles. The female Japanese beetles will lay eggs on any soil surface - I had grubs in containers and in my mulch beds - so treat any soil surface with your grub killing products. The timing of when you apply the grub killer is crucial - the freshly hatched grubs are less mature and closer to the surface, hence they are easier to kill, and you want the grub killer in place to take the grubs out as close to hatching as possible. And a correction to a statement made in this video: the female Japanese beetle does not overwinter in the ground, it lays eggs and gets back to eating plant leaves.
My biggest issue with the beetles are the grubs in my garden raised beds. They have destroyed more than half of my seedlings this year. Ive use diatomacious earth and sifted soil before planting, but they must be further down than I'm reaching. Suggestions on treating for the grubs in vegetable beds?
I hand picked them out of one bed this spring and that bed did so much better than last year. It’s tedious and time consuming but was worth it. Now I just need to do more of them next spring..,this was my test case. 😂 I was actually shocked at how many grubs were in one bed but it was the beetles favorite last year.
Never even heard of Japanese beetles. We have "Phyllopertha horticola, the garden chafer or garden foliage beetle" here. It looks similar but it does no damage. I use neem for garden pests, it seems to work. But I heard mixed reviews from others. Did you ever try neem and, if so, did it work for you regarding those beetles? Good video. Thank you for sharing.
I haven't used a trap, but have picked the beetles off every year and this year finally for some reason there aren't many ,maybe some of the neighbors are using traps or some kind of pesticide? I don't know but I am happy the numbers have diminished tremendously this year. I am just finding a couple a day. :) This year the plants they were after were my pink petunias! Rarely found any on anything else. The other plant they really loved was my Passion flower that just started blooming and I found half a dozen on 1 flower. which I removed.
urgh when they find something they want to eat its like a team event! Thats interesting they were on your petunias as they didn't go on mine at all!!! The other interesting observation is they never touch my tomatoes!
Their default is to drop when disturbed, so your soapy water is my go to. To decrease their numbers, add milkey spore to your garden soils and even your lawn. Follow the bag instructions for temperature requirements and rate of application. Between daily checks with soapy water and Milkey Spore my beetles have decreased.
I just purchased one yesterday, and I already caught 2 within 24 hrs! But I placed it in the back of my yard (my flowers are in the front) can I place the bag 10-20feetaway from garden or further?
These traps have been around for years and are very affective. The gypsy moth issue when I was a boy caused traps to be designed for those also. I'm waiting for the trap design for the spotted lantern fly. They are spreading and are detrimental to so many crops.
There were spotted lantern fly traps of a similar design as these japanese beetle traps on a walking path in New Jersey two months ago. I assume they're obtainable for the public by now?
I wonder if Kaolin clay spray would work. kaolin clay . It's a completely natural product that seems like it works miracles. This powdery clay is mixed with water and sprayed on plants to physically prevent pests from attacking your garden. It's most commonly used on fruit trees but can work on just about any plant.
They’ve taken out most of our ash trees in my area of eastern canada. So now they’re destroying lots of the wild grape vines, killed off most of our roses before we could do anything about them, etc. etc…. Hate those dam things and all the other invasives brought in from global trade.
I'm on the shore in Maryland. Last yr and again this they were the absolute worst. I gave up last yr, this yr I was out there before 8am hunting them down, which honestly wasn't hard at all. I ended up taking my beautiful double hollyhocks to the ground, they were just stuffed between the petals, so ugly. I'm using milky spore this autumn, then getting some assassin bugs come spring. I did find 3 that are native to Maryland, so on a hope and a prayer, and fingers crossed they do a great job of helping me out.
I use a trap plus i pick them up with à frozen bottle with other frozen Beatles inside just the smell when i open the bottle make.them fall inside some even fly inside
I think next year i'm going to net my grapes as nothing keeps them off and they always manage to stress my plant enough to where i get no grapes! What is BT?
The Japanese Beetles are here in Canada. Niagara Falls Ontario is where I am located. I too have petunias at the base of my Zinnias, they leave the petunias alone but are attacking my Zinnias.
We had a bad infestation last year. I added compost and tilled 3 times this year. We've only had a few beetles and squash bugs this year. I'm not sure why. Could too much rain affect them?
interesting! Its possible that tilling could have disrupted bug larvae - i don't know. We had squash bugs pretty bad this year too - they also over winter in wood piles and decaying debris ( just FYI) and for some reason my chickens wont eat them lol! - i think its their blue blood !! hehehe
I had an old van on my property from an old business and the chrome bumper constantly attracted the Guinea fowl. They would stand in front of the "mirror" and argue/fight/peck with the bird in the reflection for HOURS. Funny at first, by I eventually spray painted the bumper before getting rid of the van all together because the noise drove me nuts. Amazing birds but noise is an understatement.
lol !! Thats to funny!!! Yeah they are loud - ours settled down after their first year - now i only hear them when there is a real predator issue outside - snake or fox... and they are loud enough that i can hear them in the house so they do a job for me that way too!!
Would like to know what part of the USA you are in.. ? I ask because I live in west central Wyoming. lander and heard the Japanese beetles have been seen in front range Colorado..I want to be ready. I lived in Iowa, Davenport. In 2009..so I do know how bad they can be.. just a note.. I lived in Okinawa Japan 2017-19..and never saw any Japanese beetles😮.
oddly enough I used these traps one year and we were swarmed by the beetles. I discontinued their use and they went away. I was told these traps attract many more beetles than if you had no traps. Right now my neighbor has traps and lots of beetles but I have none to speak of. My observation may be wrong but I can’t argue with the results.
you are not wrong - the traps do attract beetles!! My goal is to attract them ALL - we are in a very rural area and i think a lot of them are in the woodland and have never been addressed so it felt like taking on an army 2 years ago - its got less each year so i'm hopefully breaking the back of the population! I guess your neighbour is taking care of it for you this year!! Buy them dinner!! lol
If you use those pheromone traps you will need to use them for at least 2 to 4 years in succession because it draws beetles from well beyond most property perimeters and they may have infested your grounds with their eggs. Just keep doing this for a few years and the problem should be solved.
i've been working on that premise!! I don't think our neighbours ( 1/4 mile away) do anything and our surrounding woodland has probably never been treated so i'm figuring it will take some time but thats ok!! I'm in it to win the war even if i loose a few battles!!
It traps don't solve the problem, in fact, it increases the focus into your space. I tried it, and my vegetables still got all eaten up. Including our Linden, Mape and Cherry trees.
I found a whole bunch of grubs like those in my garden soil when I was amending it in spring and wondering are there any other grubs which are lookalikes to Japanese beetle grubs? I also found a similar beetle yesterday in my garden, it doesn't quite 100% look like a Japanese beetle it doesn't have the white parts on the edges of it's wings and colors are not quite the same but is very close. I'm unsure what it is exactly and I sure hope it's not actually a Japanese beetle.
this is a great tip! I also used a trap crop last year "geraniums" which have a toxin in the leaves to paralyse the beetles - but we got such huge numbers of beetles i don't think i would have had enough trap crops to overcome!! Definitely an important part of the strategy though - i'll be trying marigolds next year!
I can’t stand the Japanese beetles on my rose bushes so one time I went to the store looking for this trap. I looked at it for a long time and finally walked out the store without getting one. I just can’t kill them.
not sure if exactly same japanese beetle that i used to have on this side of the world, as i think there's more than one beetle called japanese beetle. the way i dealt with mine is different. i noticed their grubs in good numbers whenever i dug into my lawn. apparently my ones were into dead grass roots. i started looking after lawn by fertilizing and watering deeply, and havent seen the beetles in years. my japanese beetles didnt used to damage plants much, but were a nuisance in fall when they all emerged and swarmed around outside lights.
interesting - maybe your grass was just better tasting than your plants!! I've heard others report brown patches in their lawns due to the grubs feeding on grass roots and killing the grass from underneath.
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouse : yes, that's what was happening here, until i started fertilizing and watering lawn. i dont see any, for a number of years now. it may or may not be an option for you. if you do have a local population in your place, the grubs can be found in ground in cool season. my climate is frost free, and i'd find them in soil in winter. they're also impartial to any rotting wood, such as raised garden bed boxing. i got rid of raised beds and learnt that they cause more problems than they solve. now happy gardening in standard rows, with driptape irrigation and fertilization.
From the top comment on this post I just think you can use that into your advantage. Make a pin point to attract them for one year, make it so great that they can't look away, then plant your plan. But you should do it perfectly. If it is a success, you can make it in bigger size every year and use your knowledge to get budget from the gov and they can invest to stop it.
Pig has a syrong sense of smell stronger than dog so them smelling the grubs under ground is not far fetched. Also pig noses can be used by pigs to shovel up ground so they equiped to deal with this problem.
I love this comment!! Thankyou! I am always amazed by watching my pigs. I can stand at the top of the woodland with a bucket of tomatoes for them and i dont have to say a thing, it takes them 5 mins to smell me and come running up the hill from 300ft away!!
Have you tried spraying beneficial nemotodes across your lawn and garden? As I understand it, you buy the relevant nemotode that preys on the grubs, dump the packet into the hose sprayer with water in it, and just spray down the lwasn and dirt. Nemotodes disperse into the soil and go on the hunt eating the grubs.
Yup. I'm using type Hb with good success. To be effective, you need to apply in spring and fall. Application is a little tricky as they don't like light and are very sensitive to temperature and soil moisture level. IMO, well worth the effort.
aww thanks for watching! These traps only catch japanese beetles - i've never seen another type of bug in the traps. However because cucumber beetles also over winter in the ground i would suggest applying the same principle of interrupting the reproductive cycle by using products to kill them in the ground before they emerge. Try looking up nematodes for cucumber beetle grubs. - let me know what you find as we get a few here too!
The best thing I did was getting rid of my grape plant, and my neighbor getting rid of their false grape plants. That reduced their population dramatically. I still see some here and there, like in my Rose of Sharon flowers. I can deal with those by catching and burning them alive.
they do like the grapes here too but equally all the fruit trees and berry bushes... i actually bought nets for next year because they have managed to damage my main vine again so much i got no grapes anyway !
I just love guineas, however, I learned they are not cold hearty at all. They come from a very warm climate. Places that are zone 5 or below can be very cruel to guineas They get frost bite easily, more easily than chickens or turkeys. They don't like to be cooped up so it's hard to protect them in winter. I've had them fly up into the trees and try to roost when it's very cold. Their feet freeze when they do that. Please don't encourage sales of guineas by buying them in areas as cold as zone 5 and below, it's cruel. I still love guineas, they are the best bug eaters out there.
I have a small yard in the middle of the city and mostly grow flowers. Of course the flowers I am most attracted to are also those the beetles love. So I tell everyone that the beetles and I have the same taste in flowers!😂😢🤬
The pheromone that attracts the beetles is technically the pheromone given off by females to attract males. Here in Japan, people would bottle traps and put mating pairs in as a trap because one of them would be female for sure. Since we don't have these kinds of super effective traps for them for some reason. If you constantly do this you can disrupt the mamekogane breeding cycle in a pretty wide area and massively decrease population year after year. Natural predators exist here but not really in urban areas so entire neighborhoods would set up these traps in the past to basically snuff them out for the entire town. People stopped growing roses as much though so more rare to see now. I imagine with the massive population of these beetles infesting there as invasive species, it would be a good idea to get the neighborhood community together to put these much more effective traps up every breeding season If your community is serious about erasing them. Their breeding season is June to August.
Milky spore granules will organically treat the soil and the effect multiples providing years of protection. Not a quick solution tho - 3 applications, Spring, Summer, Fall for two years. This has almost eliminated Japanese beetles in my garden.
Do not waste the dead beetles. They make incredibly good firtilizer and lower soil PH level for plants that need higher soil acidity. They do wonders for young hemlock that look anemic.
well they do but here is the thing, beetles themselves attract other beetles ( its the same mechanism) so yes the trap draws them in but my philosophy is to catch and kill - when you get beetles on your plants others start showing up because they emit a pheramone - this is the same principle that the trap works on. I rather they fall in the bag then join their friends!
Used to use traps, but it was totally disgusting harvesting pounds of beetles in the bags. I used Spectracide Concentrate Triazicide on a Larch tree and some Medlar trees and the Japanese beetles seem to be repelled and if they do try to consume the leaves, they drop off dead. Best solution to those evil buggers that I have ever found - lasts for two months In the Midwest, ya got to spray just before July 15th.
Lol- i used to be creeped out too but i guess over exposure and i got desensitised!! We stick to organic practices on our farm so no chemical sprays- though we probably get run off from neighbouring farms 🙃
If I were to collect the beetles from my trees, could I put them into something and have then attract others into a makeshift container they can enter but not leave?
I think the problem you would have is keeping your “lure beetles” alive so they continue to give off the pheramones- the ones in our traps die when they pile up and soon start smelling really bad!
The problem I had with the traps is that it attracted so many of them it was uncontrollable. If the 25000 bugs I caught mean I don’t get them this year, that’s great!
I had the same problem 20 years ago when the beetles first made it to southern Illinois. Our backyard was over the fence from a soybean field that the beetles just loved. Initial attempts to use the Spectricide bag traps of the day did not work well, because they filled up within an hour, resulting in them meeting up, mating and flying off. Also, the traps seemed to attract more beetles to the yard than were there before putting them up, so placing them far away from their favorite plants is a good strategy.
Putting the trap over a 45-gallon trash drum filled part way with soapy water was an improvement. I would dump the barrel each evening and refill it. The skunks, opossums and rat snakes enjoyed the feast. What really did the trick was replacing the tiny bag with a tube of plastic bag material long enough to ensure that the beetles entering the trap would be guided to a watery demise. Just using a longer, large capacity bag worked wonders too. The bags had to weigh over 30 pounds each. They do stink though when caught in those quantities.
You are correct that keeping their numbers down does help from year to year. One other thing I noticed is that it took the native birds a while to develop a taste for the beetles. The cardinals in particular seem to have developed a taste for them, and I often see them working their way through our vines to find them.
wow thanks for sharing all your experience - i keep dreaming of some sort of rig where i can funnel the beetles through the trap into a tube like you say and then have that tube go into a dish in the chicken coop where they get served for breakfast lunch and dinner!!! I just need to be confident that my chickens would eat them in those numbers lol! it seems like such a waste of protein! Yeah i haven't seen the native birds too interested in our garden, it might be due to the jucier grasshoppers but we had finches in our sunflowers this year so maybe they got a closer look at the beetles and tried a couple!! here is hoping!
If they drown in water, are they preserved longer for chicken feed? Genius idea with the longer funnel to a watery demise!
Im in Ontario and 3 years ago was the first time I've ever seen or heard of these guys, they sure seem to love pole beans and whatever vine grows on my fences! Wasn't until this year that I noticed the finches here finally getting a taste for them as well. Hopefully the other birds will catch on.
Also, thanks for the video. Was leery of using the traps if it was going to attract more of them to our yard but think it's time to try them out. Although doing it by hand can be cathartic, it becomes so tedious after awhile...
@@mattyrolph8429 Bird baths help the most in controlling japanese beetles ;)
I don’t understand why milky spore was not mentioned. It is fabulous for keeping down numbers. It also spreads naturally. I tend to reapply every few years to boost it, but it does work wonders!
I should have re-mentioned it - it was actually covered in my first video! Its a great product.
The traps are easy. Just hang them.
I think so. But beatles on your plants are from your neighbors lawn.
FIY: The horticulturist here where I live said those traps need to be hung FAR away from your garden area, else you will cause those beetles to be attracted to your garden plants. He said to always be mindful where you are hanging them, (not too close to a neighbors garden)... that would cause someone else trouble.... but mainly, you don't want to put those traps in your garden area or anywhere near it. The idea is to lure the beetles AWAY from your garden and to end up in the bag. The attractant in the lure is Geranium oil.
Yes at least 20 ft down wind because they will flock to everything close to it. We made that mistake. We have a grape vine and a lot of hibiscus and foliage around and that's why we bought them. but her bags seem to be the best I've seen, ours don't open at the bottom but these have been a real life saver for us and our grape vines!
You are totally right! We put up the traps last year exactly as suggest on the package---far away from our garden and we had the worst infestation we've ever had! No more traps for us! I'll try something else.
@@susanbutler3429 It is extremely tedious but handpicking is the best. I walk my garden, which is huge, 3X a day with a bucket of soapy water and drowned them. I am retired but I would prefer to do other things.
I'm curious how far away from my garden do they need to be so they aren't a threat and still be able to attract them.
@@johnnysikes16701 One thing I found is that they attract a lot more than they catch. I tried them and no good in my case.
I have found that planting Buckwheat close to and within gardens so they are flowering early and all summer the buckwheat attracts beetle predators and the beetle population drop dramatically. More pollinators and birds are in the garden. Those look like very good traps, and they plan for a big 'harvest'.
Thats really interesting!! Ive tried a few trap crops but never thought of predator insects- one other lady on here said she ordered assassin bugs to unleash in the garden- i didnt know they eat the beetles!
You are so right about seeing one or two one year and then a mass the next. I tend to let most critters live their little lives, but I finally let my young peach trees fruit this year and they decimated the fruit just before it was ripe enough to pick. They chewed right through the organza bags i had put on the fruits. I'm going to try these traps.
they chewed through the organza bags ???!!!! The first year i saw these beetles ( me being from the UK) i didn't know what they were, and there were a small cluster on a young walnut tree - i thought wow what pretty beetles and took a photo and walked off !! lol - that soon changed into "this is war"!!!
Thank you so much, that was very informative
I have done a ton of research on whether or not to use traps. I copy and pasted this article I found...
The University of Missouri and Lincoln University have found two things that are key to making the traps effective. What they say is that you must make sure you have a large container to trap the beetles in. The second important step is to not put it by the plants but instead, around the perimeter of the area you are trying to protect. You also want to make sure that the traps are spaced no further than 200 feet apart so that you have a continuous perimeter of the lure scent to attract the beetles. By placing them in a perimeter around your property it means that Japanese beetles emerging from the soil are attracted to the edge of your property instead of towards the plants you are trying to protect. Also, those flying in from neighboring properties are intercepted and trapped before they get to your plants. If you have a relatively small property, such as a regular city lot, with the 200 foot spacing you may only need one or two traps. You would place the traps on either end of your property and or the place farthest from the things you are trying to protect. Having a large container to hold the beetles that fall in the trap helps deal with the issue of them filling up too fast and makes it more feasible to empty the containers as needed.
To read rest of article - www.givinggrove.org/blog-reference/guest-post-japanese-beetle
solid information thankyou for sharing! I've played around with the perimeter and for us i think there is so little distance between the woodland ( where i think they come from) and the garden ( where they land) we have just been swarmed by mass numbers until this year and i couldn't tell if placing the traps further away was helping... this year we had the traps about 15ft from the garden but about 200ft apart and have defintely collected a good number but not in the quantities like last year so im hoping thats to do with "less beetle babies" after trapping the adults from year to year!
We are planning to move the chickens closer to the garden and i'd love to develop a system where the beetles are funnelled down a pipe into a dish of water for the chickens to self serve!!
Happy to share!
Look at how many you collect!!! 🐞 My gosh no wonder our raspberry plants were completely skeletonized!!!
It happened to my plum trees😂😂😂
I LOVE the beetle bags you have! Ours are different and they dont open at the bottom so we have to empty ours every other day and its stinky and messy but i am about to go buy some of your linked bags now! We have grape vines and a lot of hibiscus plants around our house and these bags have been a life saver! We have discarded hundreds and thousands of these beetles and they seem to fill to the brim every other day. Your video was very informative so thanks for all the research you've done and relayed to us in this vid! Oh, and we have to put them atleast 20 ft down wind of our grapes, flowers and trees and we just hang them on our fence but im going to get a hook like you have so i can place them exactly where i want! Tha ks!
It may depend on where you live. My garden ( in southern Ontario Canada) had petunias and holes were eaten through the blooms, daily. I spent three hours a day through the entire season, and all my planters are full of those eggs. I’m slowly reclaiming the dirt and getting rid of the grubs.
I live in town but have always had Japanese Beetle problems d/t my rose bushes. I let my neighbors put out those bags and attract the beetles to their properties:) I have put the grub killer in my grass for a couple years. This year I hardly saw any beetles on my flowers - at least partly because one day I noticed movement in my grass, went to check it out, and realized I was seeing beetles emerging from the ground! I got real busy killing them before they could get any further.
Lol! Yes attract them away!! Whenever im gardening and i find the grubs i throw them to my ducks- now whenevr im digging anywhre my ducks follow me around expectantly!
Japanese Beetle traps just add to the problem. I used them for a few years and just got more beetles. I don't use them anymore. I'm using Milky Spore. It works!
we're do.I buy Milkyspores..I livevin Canada
The pheromones in the traps attract male beetles. The females will follow. If the females that follow have been mated the you end up with lots of eggs in your yard/garden.
This is the most comprehensive video I've seen on these pests. And I don't think people realize the damage they can do to fully grown tree's!
Very educational,Thnx.
thankyou !!
Funny how I didn't know you have this problem in your country and it broke my heart and then saw someone did invent something to stop and manage it and it calmed me down.
I wish your and the earth the best. ❤
Yes, these pests are now in north America. They are not natural to our ecosystem in America. So they don't have to deal with their natural preditors in their native environment. They are very destructive.
Thank you, I tried the traps and they work great. I’m finding very few beetles in my garden now.👍🏻
I had lot of them this year. They gone after my weeping cherry trees, roses, hibiscus and yellow petunias. I couldn’t believe they gone after the yellow petunias. I also found them in my vegetable garden, especially the beans, cucumbers and squash. I noticed some of them on the arborvitae tress. They are so nasty, so I used trap bags and hand picked them into soapy water. I learned recently that they don’t like garlic water so will give it a try next year. I wish I could get them under control at my property because I do think they are pretty.
They seem to enjoy this hot humid weather we are having! Keep going with the trap bags- my thinking is that they have to tail off eventually 🫣 it creates a lot of extra work but i believe we can get on top of them with a multi faceted approach! They went after my beans and my raspberries earlier in the season and now on my sweet potatoes 🤷🏼♀️
I planted garlic chives by my squash and they didn't go near it.
This year is so incredibly bad for me with those beetles last year I hardly had any and if I saw them I would remove them and squish them. But this year they are just taking over. They have taken my morning glory, my roses, green beans, and marigolds. I have found them on my other plants but they have not attacked them like how they did with those other plants or not at all. Thanks for making this video it really helps me to figure out what to do next.
I hope it helps give you some strings! Last year was awful for us so i went ALL out to get rid of them- and i refuse to use chemicals! It does create a bunch of work which is awful in this heat- i also recently bought some large next which i plan to get set up for next year!!!
Keep using trap bags- remember every beetle you trap and kill can not make more beetles 💪🏼
Thanks for the video. I'm here in San Diego. We have a fig tree that attracts the big green Japanese beetles. I will pick up the fallen figs and encourage people on the property to pick them off the tree. We also have hibiscus shrubs full of whitefly so I'm dealing with that too. Again, thanks for your video.
Thank you for this video! I've been battling Japanese Beetles since we moved into our home a few years ago. The plants they seem to be most attracted to for me are our roses, hardy hibiscus, rose of sharon, black berries, raspberries, and marigolds. I purchased some traps like the ones in your video and they seem to work alright. I definitely still have to go around and get them off the plants myself. I might also try the grub killer this fall to see if that makes more of a difference. I also started my first veggie garden this year and have dealt with pretty much all of the "bad bugs" so it has been an exhausting experience just trying to manage pests without using a bunch of sprays and chemicals.
I hear you! Keep going- i think what you are doing will break the back of the cycle… definitely treat the ground, “milky spore” is a ground application specific for japanese beetles - keep the traps going and keep hand picking! I’ll be interested to know how the situation looks next year !
I garden organically. I only use organic fertilizer, never spray with pesticides. Focus on soil health and keep adding lots of organic matter and it will get better, I promise. I grow sunflowers, the birds eat the seeds and eat bugs while visiting. Grow lots of flowers around your garden and you will create a habitat for beneficial insects who will go after the bad bugs. This year I put mint leaves every other day around my squash plants and cucumbers and it helped deter squash and cucumber beatles. This is my 5th year in this garden and my soil gets better every year and this was my best season yet! Hang in there!
I've had extensive discussion with our state extension agents about the traps and they are clear that the traps are not good for backyard use. They bring more beetles in. I've convinced my neighbors to not use them. We're having much better luck with 3X/year use of milky spore.
I think each area probably needs assessment based on circumstances - if we hadnt uses the traps the beetles would have come anyways because they breed in the woodland that surrounds us. The traps attract them yes but the beetles also attract each other so once you have them in your garden then they just attract their mates! Milky spore is good- i had someone else write in to say they used milky spore, sprayed their crops with Kaolin clay and also used nematodes so im trying that this year!!! Thanks for sharing what you learned 👌🏻
@@jessicakillian3738 you're wrong. I catch thousands in my trap, empty them everyday in a bucket of soap water. thats thousands that DON"T reproduce
i use the same traps ... they work like a champ ... every beetle in the bag is a beetle not eating or reproducing ... and every year i seem to see fewer and beetles.
Amen! If there is one insect that could be done away with, this one gets my vote!!
Cut the bottom off the trap bag and put the trap over a 5 gallon bucket with water and a few drops of dish soap. Replace with another ready bucket as needed. Dump when bugs are fully deceased. Be diligent 3-4 years and you will break the cycle. Saved our trees and gardens when others were lost. Yes we absolutely attracted our neighbors beetles, thank God, because they did nothing but complain about my trapping. Ended their problem too. You’re welcome.
boom!! love it!!! I was going to do exactly what you said with the bucket but i wish i'd known that last year! - this year its been 10x better so haven't filled a bag once yet - but i'll keep going - i want NOT one remaining !!
Not for us in a neighborhood. They just fly on over from our neighbors!
how long does the bait cartridge last and does rain impact the trap. thanks
the company advertises them as "seasonal" its supposed to last the whole season that the beetles are around. I have just replaced a trap after 2 months but we have had barely any rain. Last year we had more rain and it did reduce the efficiency of the trap. Now if i know a big rain is coming i take the trap off the stand and hang it in a shed until the rain clears.
I had a year old trap, it was still attaching a few, but a new lure was much better. So they will easily last a season
Thanks so much for sharing! It's nice to have a big property that you can put the traps far away from the garden. I've always found that pheromone traps backfire. I have a huge India Moth problem from just one trap that attracted every India Moth in the county. Buckets with pound on seals are the only thing that can keep them out of food or feed.
They 🪲and the grubs make great fish bait 🐠🐟
We have birds here... Ibis I think... that have long beaks to get deep in the sandy soil and feast on the grubs..
I hand pick and have a bucket of dawn soap water. I use landscape fabric in my garden now and it stops 50% of bugs.slugs,potato beetles and Japanese beetles. I spray my fruit trees
Good news! Thank you for the information.
A farm market owner / organic grower taught me to sprinkle a little sea salt on the snow around the plants that the japanese beetles usually eat. I’m not sure if it kills the grubs or if it changes the taste of the plant so the beetles no longer want it. Only a little salt. Too much salt can make the soil infertile.
I’ve sprayed with soap and water , so far seems to be doing the trick.
Great video, thank you & trying the trap for the first time this year. Big backyard but will try just one trap this year and will move it around the perimeters every other day. Only been 2 days and trap already works well, just not as many beetles as I was expecting. But I was also late in buying trap. The beetles were already out and about for a few days. But best to do something than nothing at all.
They really like Marigolds too.
I've found applying Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Hb nematodes) to the soil in the spring and fall really helps with grubs. Do your homework on application, as they are very sensitive to light, temperature and soil moisture.
this is great - i will look it up thankyou - i've been wondering about Nematodes
The beneficial nematodes killed off about 95 percent of my beetles. I have to dig many, many shovels of dirt in my large garden before I even find one!
Your right, last year I killed in the bags and by hand about 8 t0 10 thousand, this year after a month maybe a thousand total but I stay up on them, I live in mid michigan. next year I will put a lot of grub killer down around the lawn brown spots and see if that helps. Great video.
thankyou ! Sounds like you are winning the war! Thats my strategy also - sooner or later the population curve has to flatten right!! I'm all in favour of drawing them out and bagging them! lol - my weird hobby!
Using a grub killing product on the lawn is the most important thing in killing future Japanese beetles. The female Japanese beetles will lay eggs on any soil surface - I had grubs in containers and in my mulch beds - so treat any soil surface with your grub killing products.
The timing of when you apply the grub killer is crucial - the freshly hatched grubs are less mature and closer to the surface, hence they are easier to kill, and you want the grub killer in place to take the grubs out as close to hatching as possible.
And a correction to a statement made in this video: the female Japanese beetle does not overwinter in the ground, it lays eggs and gets back to eating plant leaves.
I’m planning to put these traps a few hundred yards away from my orchard. Wonder if that will solve the “attract them to your garden” problem.
Laying out a 2 foot grid of 2 ounces of Milky Spore really helps for up to 10 years
My biggest issue with the beetles are the grubs in my garden raised beds. They have destroyed more than half of my seedlings this year. Ive use diatomacious earth and sifted soil before planting, but they must be further down than I'm reaching. Suggestions on treating for the grubs in vegetable beds?
I hand picked them out of one bed this spring and that bed did so much better than last year. It’s tedious and time consuming but was worth it. Now I just need to do more of them next spring..,this was my test case. 😂 I was actually shocked at how many grubs were in one bed but it was the beetles favorite last year.
Never even heard of Japanese beetles. We have "Phyllopertha horticola, the garden chafer or garden foliage beetle" here. It looks similar but it does no damage. I use neem for garden pests, it seems to work. But I heard mixed reviews from others. Did you ever try neem and, if so, did it work for you regarding those beetles? Good video. Thank you for sharing.
Here on my property in Northeast Georgia they go after the wild muscadine
I haven't used a trap, but have picked the beetles off every year and this year finally for some reason there aren't many ,maybe some of the neighbors are using traps or some kind of pesticide? I don't know but I am happy the numbers have diminished tremendously this year. I am just finding a couple a day. :) This year the plants they were after were my pink petunias! Rarely found any on anything else. The other plant they really loved was my Passion flower that just started blooming and I found half a dozen on 1 flower. which I removed.
urgh when they find something they want to eat its like a team event! Thats interesting they were on your petunias as they didn't go on mine at all!!! The other interesting observation is they never touch my tomatoes!
Their default is to drop when disturbed, so your soapy water is my go to.
To decrease their numbers, add milkey spore to your garden soils and even your lawn. Follow the bag instructions for temperature requirements and rate of application.
Between daily checks with soapy water and Milkey Spore my beetles have decreased.
I just purchased one yesterday, and I already caught 2 within 24 hrs! But I placed it in the back of my yard (my flowers are in the front) can I place the bag 10-20feetaway from garden or further?
These traps have been around for years and are very affective. The gypsy moth issue when I was a boy caused traps to be designed for those also.
I'm waiting for the trap design for the spotted lantern fly. They are spreading and are detrimental to so many crops.
i haven't heard of the lantern fly - funny someone else just mentioned that a moment ago! Will have to google it!
There were spotted lantern fly traps of a similar design as these japanese beetle traps on a walking path in New Jersey two months ago. I assume they're obtainable for the public by now?
Wow, so glad I found your content.
I wonder if Kaolin clay spray would work.
kaolin clay . It's a completely natural product that seems like it works miracles. This powdery clay is mixed with water and sprayed on plants to physically prevent pests from attacking your garden. It's most commonly used on fruit trees but can work on just about any plant.
Thank you for your insights and advice..
They’ve taken out most of our ash trees in my area of eastern canada. So now they’re destroying lots of the wild grape vines, killed off most of our roses before we could do anything about them, etc. etc…. Hate those dam things and all the other invasives brought in from global trade.
Oh my gosh we get thousands and thousands of them. I am definitely trying this.
I'm on the shore in Maryland. Last yr and again this they were the absolute worst. I gave up last yr, this yr I was out there before 8am hunting them down, which honestly wasn't hard at all. I ended up taking my beautiful double hollyhocks to the ground, they were just stuffed between the petals, so ugly. I'm using milky spore this autumn, then getting some assassin bugs come spring. I did find 3 that are native to Maryland, so on a hope and a prayer, and fingers crossed they do a great job of helping me out.
they are pretty cool looking bugs! I did not know they take out Japanese beetles!! You will have to let me know how that goes!!
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouse
Will do 😊
I use a trap plus i pick them up with à frozen bottle with other frozen Beatles inside just the smell when i open the bottle make.them fall inside some even fly inside
Roses and grapes were destroyed last year. This year I sprayed BT late at night and the Beetles are all gone. Not one beetle on my plants.
I think next year i'm going to net my grapes as nothing keeps them off and they always manage to stress my plant enough to where i get no grapes! What is BT?
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouse - Bt is Bacillus thuringiensis
The Japanese Beetles are here in Canada. Niagara Falls Ontario is where I am located. I too have petunias at the base of my Zinnias, they leave the petunias alone but are attacking my Zinnias.
You should try milky spore disease , a powder that you spread on your lawn
thankyou ! yes i use it also - i had mentioned it in my previous video! Should have mentioned it again!
We had a bad infestation last year. I added compost and tilled 3 times this year. We've only had a few beetles and squash bugs this year. I'm not sure why. Could too much rain affect them?
interesting! Its possible that tilling could have disrupted bug larvae - i don't know. We had squash bugs pretty bad this year too - they also over winter in wood piles and decaying debris ( just FYI) and for some reason my chickens wont eat them lol! - i think its their blue blood !! hehehe
Thanks sis
There aught to be a band called ''Japanese Beatles'' with an album called ''In Your garden'' it would sell like a million copies
bahahah!! I was thinking more like "Help!"
I had an old van on my property from an old business and the chrome bumper constantly attracted the Guinea fowl. They would stand in front of the "mirror" and argue/fight/peck with the bird in the reflection for HOURS. Funny at first, by I eventually spray painted the bumper before getting rid of the van all together because the noise drove me nuts. Amazing birds but noise is an understatement.
lol !! Thats to funny!!! Yeah they are loud - ours settled down after their first year - now i only hear them when there is a real predator issue outside - snake or fox... and they are loud enough that i can hear them in the house so they do a job for me that way too!!
Would like to know what part of the USA you are in.. ? I ask because I live in west central Wyoming. lander and heard the Japanese beetles have been seen in front range Colorado..I want to be ready. I lived in Iowa, Davenport. In 2009..so I do know how bad they can be.. just a note.. I lived in Okinawa Japan 2017-19..and never saw any Japanese beetles😮.
Guinea warrior just doing work need more of them
Wouldn't diatomaceous earth kill them at the grub stage?
oddly enough I used these traps one year and we were swarmed by the beetles. I discontinued their use and they went away. I was told these traps attract many more beetles than if you had no traps. Right now my neighbor has traps and lots of beetles but I have none to speak of. My observation may be wrong but I can’t argue with the results.
you are not wrong - the traps do attract beetles!! My goal is to attract them ALL - we are in a very rural area and i think a lot of them are in the woodland and have never been addressed so it felt like taking on an army 2 years ago - its got less each year so i'm hopefully breaking the back of the population! I guess your neighbour is taking care of it for you this year!! Buy them dinner!! lol
If you use those pheromone traps you will need to use them for at least 2 to 4 years in succession because it draws beetles from well beyond most property perimeters and they may have infested your grounds with their eggs. Just keep doing this for a few years and the problem should be solved.
i've been working on that premise!! I don't think our neighbours ( 1/4 mile away) do anything and our surrounding woodland has probably never been treated so i'm figuring it will take some time but thats ok!! I'm in it to win the war even if i loose a few battles!!
Thank you so much, we've been dealing with this issue for a while.
@@ellliwhite8773 they are the worst!!!
It traps don't solve the problem, in fact, it increases the focus into your space. I tried it, and my vegetables still got all eaten up. Including our Linden, Mape and Cherry trees.
I found a whole bunch of grubs like those in my garden soil when I was amending it in spring and wondering are there any other grubs which are lookalikes to Japanese beetle grubs? I also found a similar beetle yesterday in my garden, it doesn't quite 100% look like a Japanese beetle it doesn't have the white parts on the edges of it's wings and colors are not quite the same but is very close. I'm unsure what it is exactly and I sure hope it's not actually a Japanese beetle.
I had a lot of success after I planted plenty of giant marigolds. The flowers seem to trap them and they "mostly" avoided my other plants.
this is a great tip! I also used a trap crop last year "geraniums" which have a toxin in the leaves to paralyse the beetles - but we got such huge numbers of beetles i don't think i would have had enough trap crops to overcome!! Definitely an important part of the strategy though - i'll be trying marigolds next year!
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouse For sure. I'm definitely not filling up buckets worth of them... oh boy you've got a lot!
@@newelljoENG lol! They ALL moved to the midwest 😂🫣🫣
You can also put the trap without the bag, inside the chicken enclosure (if you have one).
Then grow food around it
I can’t stand the Japanese beetles on my rose bushes so one time I went to the store looking for this trap.
I looked at it for a long time and finally walked out the store without getting one.
I just can’t kill them.
not sure if exactly same japanese beetle that i used to have on this side of the world, as i think there's more than one beetle called japanese beetle.
the way i dealt with mine is different. i noticed their grubs in good numbers whenever i dug into my lawn. apparently my ones were into dead grass roots. i started looking after lawn by fertilizing and watering deeply, and havent seen the beetles in years.
my japanese beetles didnt used to damage plants much, but were a nuisance in fall when they all emerged and swarmed around outside lights.
interesting - maybe your grass was just better tasting than your plants!! I've heard others report brown patches in their lawns due to the grubs feeding on grass roots and killing the grass from underneath.
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouse : yes, that's what was happening here, until i started fertilizing and watering lawn. i dont see any, for a number of years now. it may or may not be an option for you. if you do have a local population in your place, the grubs can be found in ground in cool season. my climate is frost free, and i'd find them in soil in winter. they're also impartial to any rotting wood, such as raised garden bed boxing. i got rid of raised beds and learnt that they cause more problems than they solve. now happy gardening in standard rows, with driptape irrigation and fertilization.
From the top comment on this post I just think you can use that into your advantage. Make a pin point to attract them for one year, make it so great that they can't look away, then plant your plan. But you should do it perfectly. If it is a success, you can make it in bigger size every year and use your knowledge to get budget from the gov and they can invest to stop it.
This year I sprayed soapy water on the grass everywhere and in my beds. The grubs came to the surface and birds arrived.
In the spring?
@@HandcraftedintheFoothills yes. I sprayed in May. The grubs have to be closer to the surface actively feeding. I did it two times a week.
@@CMSCK thank you!
I also added neem oil with the soap.
Thank you they get on my roses dragonflies eat them but it’s just not enough 😊
Pig has a syrong sense of smell stronger than dog so them smelling the grubs under ground is not far fetched. Also pig noses can be used by pigs to shovel up ground so they equiped to deal with this problem.
I love this comment!! Thankyou! I am always amazed by watching my pigs. I can stand at the top of the woodland with a bucket of tomatoes for them and i dont have to say a thing, it takes them 5 mins to smell me and come running up the hill from 300ft away!!
Have you tried spraying beneficial nemotodes across your lawn and garden? As I understand it, you buy the relevant nemotode that preys on the grubs, dump the packet into the hose sprayer with water in it, and just spray down the lwasn and dirt.
Nemotodes disperse into the soil and go on the hunt eating the grubs.
Yup. I'm using type Hb with good success. To be effective, you need to apply in spring and fall. Application is a little tricky as they don't like light and are very sensitive to temperature and soil moisture level. IMO, well worth the effort.
i haven't tried them as yet but thankful for this suggestion and will be looking into it!
Thank for such an informative video. My problem is cucumber beetles, so my question is if this trap works on the cucumber beetle as well?
aww thanks for watching! These traps only catch japanese beetles - i've never seen another type of bug in the traps. However because cucumber beetles also over winter in the ground i would suggest applying the same principle of interrupting the reproductive cycle by using products to kill them in the ground before they emerge. Try looking up nematodes for cucumber beetle grubs. - let me know what you find as we get a few here too!
What would happen if you opened the bag's bottom and extended it into a bin or container?
people do so successfully! I have wondered about engineering a tube at the bottom of the bag that delivers them straight into my chicken coop!! lol
@@TheLittlePalletFarmhouseYum!
Don't the bags just exasperate the problem by attracting more beetles to your yard?
What’s in the spray? Soap and water??
I think any dish soap will do.
Do you think it can be used to trap Lantern flies too?!
this specific trap will only lure Japanese beetles
The best thing I did was getting rid of my grape plant, and my neighbor getting rid of their false grape plants. That reduced their population dramatically. I still see some here and there, like in my Rose of Sharon flowers. I can deal with those by catching and burning them alive.
they do like the grapes here too but equally all the fruit trees and berry bushes... i actually bought nets for next year because they have managed to damage my main vine again so much i got no grapes anyway !
guinea fowl and boar,. yes.
New subscriber here!
times like this , one will need a pet monitor lizard , they will search for the grubs and have a feast , lol
lol!! Do they eat snakes too ????
I just love guineas, however, I learned they are not cold hearty at all. They come from a very warm climate. Places that are zone 5 or below can be very cruel to guineas They get frost bite easily, more easily than chickens or turkeys. They don't like to be cooped up so it's hard to protect them in winter. I've had them fly up into the trees and try to roost when it's very cold. Their feet freeze when they do that. Please don't encourage sales of guineas by buying them in areas as cold as zone 5 and below, it's cruel. I still love guineas, they are the best bug eaters out there.
I have a small yard in the middle of the city and mostly grow flowers. Of course the flowers I am most attracted to are also those the beetles love. So I tell everyone that the beetles and I have the same taste in flowers!😂😢🤬
bahaha! Which flowers are they? They definitely prefer my fruit and veg over flowers - but i think they like 400 different species of plants!
They love my basil 😭😭
Can't buy these on Amazon and have them shipped to California. Ebay will deliver.
Can you squish beetles ?
The pheromone that attracts the beetles is technically the pheromone given off by females to attract males.
Here in Japan, people would bottle traps and put mating pairs in as a trap because one of them would be female for sure. Since we don't have these kinds of super effective traps for them for some reason.
If you constantly do this you can disrupt the mamekogane breeding cycle in a pretty wide area and massively decrease population year after year.
Natural predators exist here but not really in urban areas so entire neighborhoods would set up these traps in the past to basically snuff them out for the entire town.
People stopped growing roses as much though so more rare to see now.
I imagine with the massive population of these beetles infesting there as invasive species, it would be a good idea to get the neighborhood community together to put these much more effective traps up every breeding season If your community is serious about erasing them. Their breeding season is June to August.
Milky spore granules will organically treat the soil and the effect multiples providing years of protection. Not a quick solution tho - 3 applications, Spring, Summer, Fall for two years. This has almost eliminated Japanese beetles in my garden.
Thats awesome!! We are into 2nd year of Milky spore treatment ( i should have mentioned it but covered it in last years video!)
Do not waste the dead beetles. They make incredibly good firtilizer and lower soil PH level for plants that need higher soil acidity. They do wonders for young hemlock that look anemic.
I've heard that if you use the traps they attract more to your place.
well they do but here is the thing, beetles themselves attract other beetles ( its the same mechanism) so yes the trap draws them in but my philosophy is to catch and kill - when you get beetles on your plants others start showing up because they emit a pheramone - this is the same principle that the trap works on. I rather they fall in the bag then join their friends!
why do they die? Does the bait kill them? If so, I would be concerned feeding them to the chicken.
Be cautious of the traps they will draw the beetles from the neighborhood.
You are absolutely right and thats kind of my plan! I want to catch as many as will come- mass extermination!!
Milky spore?
I wonder if you attach it to a bucket of dirt instead of bag. If they would lay eggs in the dirt and you could use the grubs for chicken feed.
Used to use traps, but it was totally disgusting harvesting pounds of beetles in the bags. I used Spectracide Concentrate Triazicide on a Larch tree and some Medlar trees and the Japanese beetles seem to be repelled and if they do try to consume the leaves, they drop off dead. Best solution to those evil buggers that I have ever found - lasts for two months In the Midwest, ya got to spray just before July 15th.
Lol- i used to be creeped out too but i guess over exposure and i got desensitised!! We stick to organic practices on our farm so no chemical sprays- though we probably get run off from neighbouring farms 🙃
If I were to collect the beetles from my trees, could I put them into something and have then attract others into a makeshift container they can enter but not leave?
I think the problem you would have is keeping your “lure beetles” alive so they continue to give off the pheramones- the ones in our traps die when they pile up and soon start smelling really bad!
A gentleman on here set his trap on top of a hole in a Brute brand garbage can.
He collected a lot of beetles!
A neighbour of ours did that too! - genius idea - i'll have to try it at some point!
The problem I had with the traps is that it attracted so many of them it was uncontrollable. If the 25000 bugs I caught mean I don’t get them this year, that’s great!
They arrived first time this year, here.
Urgh - sorry! At least you can start with a plan of attack 💪🏼