OH MY! That is incredible. Is that a redwood tree they are attacking? Now I understand why everyone is so upset about these beasts.

Last year my neighbor had some eating her peaches but I didn't get a chance to witness it. Husband said it was unbelievable what those things can do. I didn't have a garden last year but this year I do. I hope they miss my house!

Plums and cherries they love, but roses more than anything.

Ye-ow! I have some now, but nothing like the numbers you have! I am fighting swarms of other insects, like ants, CPBs, squash bugs, and asiatic garden beetles. They seem to be in larger numbers this year, warm winter? I'm using neem and lots of hand picking, to fairly good (and satisfying) results. So far.

I've heard they like roses, I'm glad I'm not into growing beautiful rose bushes yet. I'm sure I'll get that itch though.

Puggy, in so cal they are nothing like the numbers or concentrations of us out east. Driving down the interstate they hit your windshield or grill with such frequency it sounds like rain...

I found more casualties tonight..

{{gwi:74556}}
This is a potato that I sprayed last night with sevin. They hadn't yet found it to eat off it yesterday. Today they had though..
{{gwi:74557}}

{{gwi:74558}}
Casualties of war
{{gwi:74559}}

{{gwi:74560}}
They found my peas. Nevermind the sand burr there, the peas are done producing anyways.

I've never had them bother my roses, but they love Hollyhock, and grape leaves. They will also eat okra and pole bean plants and are especially found of Kentucky Wonder. I've just stopped planting that one because it's a beetle magnet.

I haven't seen them here this season yet. Prior seasons they concentrated on my basil(which saved my scarlet runner beans)until last season when I planted rhubarb. The leaves looked like lace by the end of summer. I can't get my basil to grow this year due to all the rain, so unless they choose the rhubarb again, my beans are toast!

White pelargonium - plant lots of it. It has something in it that kills them when they eat it. Garlic is reputed to repel them.

In addition to roses, they love rose of sharon, sassafras, and basil. Beans, too.

I had more up north than here, so far I'm just giving them the snap-fingered flick and hope they hit the wall on the way down.

They LOVE roses. As a little kid I recall seeing dozens of them nestled on top of one another in the center of a single rose bloom in our garden. I used to get a penny for every beetle that I handpicked off of the roses. One summer I made over $3 and I thought I was living large for a 6-year old kid.

I use 'Surround ', a specially formulated kaolin clay product on all veggies and have been very pleased with the results. One year, we sprayed it on a young Allee Elm which seemed to be a favorite of the beetles and it worked great.

Surround forms a white, chalky coating on the plant which is entirely non toxic. If it hasn't worn off by harvesting day, you'll need to wash it off.

It works very efficiently to keep most chewing and sucking pests away but doesn't kill them. Nor does it harm the myriad of beneficial predators (insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, squirrels, etc.) which will come in to enjoy the temporary bounty.

The predictable results of indiscriminate use of broad-spectrum insecticides and lack of habitat for beneficials.

We had them badly here one year about ten years ago and not since. Maybe have been lucky, but more likely a combination of pretty good soil nutrition and large amounts of forest cover and no large-scale farming in the region.

WOW...this is my 3rd. year gardening and couple days ago I saw them(first time) munching on my asparagus bed,wondering what kind of harm they do I guess this is clear...I hand picked them and squash them:(

The predictable response of pnbrown.

Actually this is the case of having a pest from another land, which over here has no natural predators. they don't destroy things over in japan... because they have natural predators that eat them before they do damage.

How can I control all the rootworms, japanese beetles, _____ "insert name here" beetles when I am surrounded by this:
{{gwi:74561}}

I count at least a thousand acres of tillable land around me that is farmed commercially, and those fields harbor the beetles that attack my garden..

chris, I'm not sure why you seem resentful of what pnbrown said. Your example is a perfect illustration, after all. Your predicament is to figure out how to deal with the pests in such a location. I don't envy you one bit.

Why don't you purchase a small amount of the Surround and try it on a few locations? A local agricultural co-op might even carry it, since it's been in use in farming and in orchards for years. If not, it can readily be found on-line.

It not only keeps many pests off the plants, but increases fruit and vegetable quality, too, by reducing heat and sun scald on surfaces.

I would disagree that they have no natural predator. Each year the grackles and starlings work over the lawns around me for Japanese beetle grubs and have done a marvelous job of controlling the population. Then, after they beetles come out, the sparrows eat them like crazy. I have beans and roses and have had very little to no problem with Japanese beetles.

But my garden is 100% organic as are many of the gardens surrounding me. Few people in my neighbor hood even use lawn chemicals. As a result the birds have something other than Japanese beetles to survive on when the grubs/beetles are not around.

My first thought on seeing your pictures was that the ecosystem surrounding you had probably been covered with pesticides and left very little habitat for birds. I wonder if your area also is one of the places doing bird kills of starlings, grackles and red winged blackbirds. I have no idea what you are suppose to do in the situation, but I think pnbrown called it correctly.

Bellatrix

Time to look up "motivated reasoning."

Nah, we have plenty of birds, grackles, starlings, blackbirds, the meadowlarks are exceptional, and the other day I caught a glimpse of an indigo bunting.

I guess I would say that I am resentful of people who advocate for ALL organic gardening 110%, git er done, no chemicals EVER, because every time I have tried it, I have been beaten by bugs. The only thing that has worked for me has been insecticides. I view organic gardeners like I view strict vegans, you do what you want, but stop shoving it down everyone's throat. I incorporate all the organic methods I can, because it's better for my land, in the same way that I eat a lot of vegetables and fish and try and stay away from fatty meat like beef or pork. That doesn't mean that I never enjoy those delightfully sinful treats.

I left my rhubarb unsprayed last year, and you can see that for the second year in a row, even with the sevin, bugs have defoliated it.

I don't know how people talk about having a healthy garden, with healthy soil, and their garden looks pristine. In my mind the use of BT powder/spray is no different from using properly applied sevin; it's just swapping one chemical derivative for another.

I farm as organically as I can. I add horse manure, sawdust, natural sources of organic matter and nutrients. I mulch with hay for weed supression. That adds even more organic matter. The worm population has exploded in my soils since I started gardening. If I want to garden organically 100%, it's going to have to be inside of a high tunnel, closed off from insects. OR I'd have to leave my home and go somewhere far away from a corn or soybean plant.

So, rhizo, I have figured out how to deal with the bugs, they die when they eat a sprayed leaf... it just feels unnatural to use such a harsh way of dealing with them. In a few weeks the beetle population will decline. I was resentful of what pnbrown said because he makes all kinds of posts bashing the use of any kind of chemical in a garden (or anywhere for that matter). He rubs me the wrong way when he talks about organic being the only way to Jesus, when we know that isn't the case.

He is lucky in that he can garden away from farmland. He contends that the use of chemicals is what causes the widespread population increases of insects and diseases. I contend that the presence of host plants on that farm land is what causes the population increases. more food = higher populations. Higher insect populations = more disease transmission & plant destruction.

So when you are surrounded by a veritable bug buffet, you are going to have to use measures above and beyond hand picking, expensive dusts, and soap water baths. Corn is planted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 plants per acre. With the surrounding 1,000 acres of land that equates to 35 million plants around me. That's 35 million tassels for bugs to munch on, 35 million ears to eat, 35 million silks to clip... and if you expand the range beyond the acreage that only adjoins my farm, you get into tens of thousands of acres.

But I digress, these things need to be exterminated. The Japanese beetle needs to go the way of the Cereal Leaf Beetle. But so far, people won't work collectively to rid the entire planet (except for Honshu and Hokkaido Island) of these monsters until they become a pest to mainstream corn.

"In its native Japan, this insect was much less of a pest than it was to become in its adopted home. There, it was replaced by other Popillia species to the south, and was common only on northern Honshu and Hokkaido Islands, where grasslands provided a favorable larval habitat. However, cooler temperatures at those latitudes restricted the beetle to a two year life cycle rather than the one year cycle found in most of its U.S. distribution. In addition, a well synchronized parasitic fly has played a major role in suppressing populations there. This combination of lack of larval habitat, cool temperatures, and an effective parasite continues to keep JB populations in check in Japan."

Anyone else having luck with bugs this year?

Holy hell, that is a lot of beetles. You sure someone did not hide a dozen Japanese beetle traps on your property (jk). We get them, but not nealy that much. I carry a cup of soapy water when I patrol the garden and swat them in. I also found out that my David Austin roses are an unintentional trap crop. They always struggle mightily with black spot so I decided this is how they pay their dues in my garden.

Easy, easy everyone. I know it's too hot out, let's keep it cool in here!

Seriously, when conversations become polarized, no one hears what the other side is saying and we all lose out. Chris, I garden organically, but hopefully you are not including me in the blanket statement of organic gardeners as those who shove it down everyone else's throats. (As opposed to commercial agriculture which is literally shoving their chemical use down everyone's throats...) ;)

I think Pat's point is valid (if not particularly helpful) when applied to your living situation there. As in, the fact that you are surrounded by all those fields which are likely farmed conventionally. I also see what you are dealing with and it is much worse than I have seen ever, and we had some pretty bad years with JB 20 or so years ago. In your shoes I might very well reach for the chemicals. It's you who will be eating that produce, so I should think your choice is yours to make! And I do use RoundUp on the edges of my property to beat back the poison ivy. It grows faster than I could possibly hand pull it, it can't be torched with my weed flamer and I do take the time to be sure I only get the stuff on the target plant... But don't tell, or they may revoke my membership from the Crazed Organic People Society.

Anywho, I've been using a neem/garlic spray for squash bugs and I coincedentally sprayed it on some beans that were being eaten by beetles and it seems to have stopped their feeding. Cheers!

No no sunnibel, the majority of people on here are good decent helpful gardeners, I was only making a statement about the few gardeners who decry the use of anything that might happen to be from an inorganic source, like how phosphorus is mined.

I agree with 95% of the idea of organic gardeners. I think next year will be a good year to test out different organic controls. Already this year I have found that Rosemary bushes repel deer with the same kind of raw efficiency that nerds repel cute girls, it works great.

What is neem, and also how would one make a garlic spray? I know that there are probably dozens of effective repellants that I could be using, and my use of sevin is a little... lazy. I have over 8000 square feet of garden, and it's taxing to keep up with it all, and worry about putting food away for the winter and chopping our grocery bill to zero, which is my goal.

I've also been using a regular application of mycozan to combat any blight in my taters and tomatoes. I got an email from Harris seeds saying that they are getting reports of late and early blight on the east coast, and some in california.

As for eating where I am spraying, I honestly rationalize it away. I use 1.5 ounces of sevin in a gallon of water and the plants get misted every couple of weeks from mid june to the end of july (and my spraying mostly depends on what I see in the garden, I scout regularly). IF the plants take in any of the sevin through their leaves, and if it gets into the fruit, I can't conceive of how a few droplets of diluted chemical would cause me harm. I get more exposure to crap and carcinogens when I visit downtown, or when I'm around my 2 pack a day father. Or when my son comes home from school and sneezes on me.

I'm sorry if my post above sounded angry or confrontational. I wish there was a way to relay tone through the internet.

Rhizo, I'm in your area - where do you get the Surround? I haven't seen it.

Forgot another plant - mirabilis jalapa (4 o'clock) is a good trap plant for JBs - they will devour it, but it is toxic to them.

The ONLY way I know of to truly eliminate JBs is to eliminate all the plants they like - and since hungry JBs will eat just about anything, you'd probably have to grow concrete.

Chris, I posted this in the other thread:

Chris near Springfield.....Here in central Indiana I first noticed JBs about 20 years ago on some rose blooms. After a few more years they were getting kind of bad...eating ripe [especially sweet varieties] peaches and decimating the top leaf growth of plum trees.
In 2003 I trapped 270,000 of the bugers and killed thousands more with Sevin spray on wild grape vines and plum trees. I also hand killed many more. They also were bad on the outside rows of soybeans near me. I killed a bunch of them there too.

In 2004 I bought some Milky Spore and used most of it on my daughter's yard in Brookston and used a small amount in crucial areas in my yard.

Well, in 2010 I saw only a few JBs and last year I counted 8. I am not sure just what all has worked, including prayer.

One year I set up a trap too close to my silking corn and in 3 hours it was nearly, but not, ruined. Now I heartily believe in traps set early to kill the bugers as soon as possible to cut down on damage and to keep the females from laying eggs...be sure to use the scent for females also!!

I know that traps get a bad press, but I know that those beetles that I trap and drop in really hot water will do no more damage. Do not dump the dead beetles anywhere other than a road where they will be run over or a fire as some have unhatched larva in them.

Chris, I realized after I posted that you were probably going to consider it an attack on you or your region. And probably it was unnecessarily terse. We may as well steer away from an ideological discussion, it won't do any good. Certainly I don't envy those who are stuck in those square miles of conventional large-scale farming, and it is easy to talk when one isn't.

Let me just disagree with you though about eradicating a pest like JB, which you must mean to be achieved by dint of yet more caustic compounds on an even more relentless scale. How would that happen when it is very well known now that the major insect pests evolve resistance easily, much more easily than we can afford to befoul the environment? Is there a poison that will target JB and not beneficials and that is guaranteed to break down harmlessly in the next rain?

BTW, I have given up bt and all the rest as well. I think the whole strategy of fighting bugs head-on is utterly misguided and a waste of time and effort at best and unthinkably damaging at worst. The correct strategy is to cease all poisons and agents at once everywhere and re-mineralize. That will require a lot of mining, a lot of employment for equipment operators, and zero profits for chemical companies and the end of Monsanto as well as most other ag conglomerates.

If it doesn't happen most of the worlds population will starve this century. I don't consider this viewpoint to be ideology, just a reality. If the logic of poisons would bring sustainability and health then I'd say let's continue on that track, but we know it won't.

I didn't think you really did, and I respect Pat's opinions as well, so hooray, all is good again. Neem is an oil exttacted from the seeds of the neem tree. As organic compounds go, it's active ingredient is hard on beneficials but breaks down rapidly in sunlight. (or that's my understanding, it's late and I may be getting confused) I made this mix I mention following a recipe I found elsewhere (I'll find it again in the morning). I'm considering removing the neem from the mix and trying just the garlic juice as a repellant. Anyway make the garlic juice by blending a head of garlic in a cup or two of water, let sit for 15 minutes to half an hour, strain into a bottle, then you can use it diluted as a spray. Keep the unused portion in the fridge. Cheers!

pn you knocked me over in my chair! I was expecting a big rebuttal, but I understand you a lot better now.

Actually, in my heart of hearts, I share the same ideas and thoughts as you. If it were up to me, I would put the seed in the ground, whack weeds away with a hoe, and fertilize with my horse manure. I would be happier than a tornado in a trailer park.

It was slightly terse, but it's all good, as I said it sucks that we can't relay tone through typed words. I guess thats what emoticons are for. If you put a smiley face after the words "I'm going to dragon kick a kitten :)" it's all good.

Actually the profuse spraying of chemicals did *not* have any effect of the cereal leaf beetle back in the 60's, the answer lied in a parasitic wasp. That certain species layed it's eggs on CLB eggs, and the larva ate the CLB eggs and larva, and it worked. There wasn't total eradication, but that kind of biological control made the pest manageable, and that's what I have in mind for The Swarm. I mean these days you hear very little about the CLB being a pest.

I actually agree with you, the profuse use of chemicals in farming is as lazy as lazy gets, and it's playing havoc on our ecosystem. The worst part is we have no idea how certain chemicals are having an effect on the environment. No one had a clue when DDT and 2-4-5-T was being used, they turned out to be hellish nightmare chemicals that almost destroyed a national treasure.

There is so much waste even in fertilizer, these guys are applying anhydrous in the fall, but the nitrobacter and warm temps are causing a lot of it to leech into the atmosphere. What they should be doing is sidedressing in the nitrogen as the plant needs it, but that takes effort, and it's hard to pay attention to the anhydros applicator to make sure you don't rip out any corn. Really hard :)

It's like the episode of Deep Space 9 where... here watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A

I also agree with you that our current model is not sustainable, however, I think the solution comes from creating desalinization technology (to increase the water supply by taking salt out of sea water), and by more people on this planet being involved in their own food production, instead of having huge metropolitan centers where the majority sit in a cubicle, buy their tasteless garbage from the grocery store, throw half of it away because of rot and leftovers being thrown out, and repeat the next day.

Like me for example. I wish that I could grow vegetables professionally, and sell food and be active all day, meeting new people at the farmer's market and selling the best tasting vegetables most people never have the privilege of tasting. But every time I run the numbers in my spreadsheet, I can't make it work. Tomatoes are the only high $ crop that works, the fruit yield per plant is off the chart compared to other crops. The only other crop that is economically feasible for me would be fruit trees. I think about growing professionally and I have visions in my head about being the only person in amongst acres and acres of plants, with not enough hours in the day. The only way to make a living off of being a grower is to do it on such a large scale that it would take a bunch of employees to do it properly, and motivating employees to do a suberb job is like getting cats to walk in a parade.

Incorporating High tunnels, expanding production, purchasing machinery to make the time I spend more efficient, all of that would mean I would barely break even.

I work as an agricultural appraiser, and I earn a lot of money doing appraisals for banks and estates. I would take an enormous pay cut to do what I love. I sit in my chair and push numbers around a spreadsheet, and I grasp the finer concepts of finance, capitalization rates, income ratios... and people pay a lot of money for that kind of expertise. And yet, I feel like a very unimportant cog in a bigger machine, I'm slightly overweight from my lack of activity while I'm working, but my desktop background is a shuffling set of pictures of my gardens. If only we could all do what we love. I'm sure I could find a way to make it work, but for now I am still formulating a plan.

I know I might ruffle your feathers by saying this, but I think that lower standards and mega farming has contributed the most to lower food prices, along with farm subsidies and food stamps. Don't get me wrong, poor people need help to pay the grocery bill, but... I mean shouldn't we include a hoe in with the food stamps, along with some seeds. This isn't that hard to do.

Yes I saw your post in the last thread, and I think next year, a better solution would be to try organic controls. Toxic host plants to be used as bait really intrigues me, and if that doesn't work I can try the garlic spray and neem oil. And if all of that fails I can still use the sevin, but there sounds like there are a lot of inexpensive control methods that are more geared to the organic side of the equation that would work better. The sevin isn't giving me complete control, and I'll be damned if I'm going to double dose everything just to kill some defoliating bugs.

Does anyone know how far pheremone traps have to be away from a garden so that it doesn't increase my infestation? Is 500 feet sufficient? I can go as far as 1300 feet, so would a trap be a bad idea?

Best of luck, it may be especially challenging being surrounded by commercial farming.

We don't need that much corn. How much do you think goes to corn syrup and animal feed? How many people will become unhealthy prematurely from consuming too much of it?

"getting cats to walk in a parade" .....thanks for giving me that new expression! Must be regional, I never heard it before.

It is neat to discover that we are very alike in thinking even if our circumstances are quite different. Probably that goes for all of us here on this forum because producing a range of healthy food plants is what we all care about. We don't care much about growing a river of hybrid maize or soya to drive down to the grain elevator.

I have got a slight window into what you deal with recently. The neighbor by my main garden, an acre that I rent, decided to spray broad-spectrum insecticide in an attempt to reduce the tick population because of their summer camp program and etc. That was almost two weeks ago and I have noted a significant drop in the pollinator population, or it seems to me. Maybe I am so wrought up about it that my perceptions have changed. I hope that is the case but I doubt it. The good news is they won't do it again this year. Obviously it's nothing compared to what goes on in corn-and-soybean country but nevertheless it's just so stupid. I called the board of the place to find out about it and now the director thinks I'm an enemy - misunderstandings aren't limited to the internet. I had to go over there yesterday and offer to let the kids dig potatoes sometime as a token of good will. Even though all they are offering me is the likelihood of reducing my pollinators again next year without bothering to educate themselves about what they are doing.

Say la vee, huh?

Chris cl,

Just a note on something you mentioned. I am pretty well broke right now, struggling to pay all the bills and whatnot and I am on food stamps. At Walmart, I use some of my food stamps every month to buy seeds and pants. Yup. Most people don't know that you can do that, but as long as the seeds/plants grow into something that produces food, you can get it on food stamps. I have bought most of my seeds that way (tomatoes, green beans, okra, squash, etc.), 3 banana plants, a papaya tree, and all my herbs. They should give you a hoe, but in the mean time a little hard work with a shovel out your hands works just as well.

I'd personally like to get to the point, very soon, where I don't need the food stamps, and my paycheck isn't going up any time soon. So, I grow my garden when I can around a full time job, and wait for harvest. And, after taking a free class, i've learned to can so I can store my food. It's possible to work your way to being more self sustainable and away from food stamps, you just have to want it. I work at a grocery store, and it amazes me what people but on food stamps. I'd love to take them to my garden, show them a real tomato, and how much better it tastes then a TV dinner!

In the mean time, I'll buy the seeds I need with my food stamps and grow my garden until I get to my goal (almost all veggies and most fruits in my diet from my garden only).

(see? There's what you wanted, me! Poor but got seeds with the food stamps and is working on growing a veggie garden!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Eligible Purchases for Food Stamps

TomatoesAndChickens,

Way to go, you are an inspiration to us all! I know how difficult it is to garden while working full time, you must be exhausted. People like you should get a medal.

pn,

The worst/best part about it is that these days the mega farmers near me are not spraying much insecticide at all, they are using triple, quadruple, and quintuple stack hybrids that have gene expression for producing BT toxin, and that's how they are controlling bugs. They are starting to see insects develop resistance, but I think that we are heading towards a time when chemicals will become ineffective.

when we get to that point, I think people will go back to using standard corn hybrids (which have about the same yield potential at 1/3 of the cost for the seed) and start using more conventional ways of controlling insects.

The big problem I see is guy who do continuous corn. every year the same fields get planted with corn, on top of corn, on top of corn. the GOOD farmers are rotating their crops every year, but the mega farmers are doing continuous corn, and it drives me batty.

What were the types of plants that are toxic to beetles, what kinds of things should be planted as a refuge along with my veggies?

White Pelargonium
4 O'Clocks
marigolds?
Pyrethrum Daisy? (I love daisys)
Geraniums?

Garlic water spray?
catnip as a repellant?

Chris, You asked about trap placement and I have had experience in that...and it is "organic".

I placed one trap a quarter of a mile away which had some wild grape vines, which they LOVE, and 4 corners of soybean and corn fields along with the roadside grass that seems to hatch out the beetles. According to how many beetles you trap, they could need daily emptying and rinsing. At the very worst the traps might need emptied in 2 hours. I also placed another trap about 150 feet upwind of the gardens in the edge of a soybean field. I also placed another trap a short ways up wind of the garden/s.

Remember to have full scent coverage to also get the females , and also these beetles really stink so don't bury them...they have eggs inside the females.

You might consider trying Spinosad. I swear by the stuff. Fully organic, safe, and only kills bugs that EAT your plants so the beneficial insects are not harmed.

I squished one today, and eggs came squooshing out.

So far, they're not out in force.

TandC, Good for you!I was on food stamps for a couple of months many years ago and also started my second garden.
Something I have noticed in our area are many many community gardens in town and out of town! Some of the largest are located in a very low income area (about an acre) and for a very low fee, the families get their garden space, the water they need (that's what the space fee pays for), compost trucked in and available at cost and classes on gardening and composting! Many are being created at churches and charge very low fees or sliding scale.
BTW, I have very few JBs. They may, in fact be boxelder bugs (same thing????) Nancy

Have killed about 30 here so far in southwest WI...

I have no idea how you deal with that many other then strong pesticides.

If you want the best pesticide for Japanese Beetles, as shown by research, that would be Phosmet. Its tough to find these days.

How about a trap tree? I've noticed that all the beetles so far I've seen have been in one tree...a sweet cherry...I have everything here for them, from flowers, to plums, peaches, grapes... Get them all in one spot and nuke them daily?

You could trap them large scale. Get big traps or even rig them up to a garbage can!

Get all the farmers in you area to treat the grubs? Import every predator of Japanese Beetles from Japan? Have the whole country spray both Phosemet and grub killer?

Japanese Beetles are still somewhat rare say west of Omaha, NE... I know in those areas they do pop up (Colorado) they try mass trappings to reduce the numbers.

No, spraying on a large scale won't work, and neither will setting trap plants and "nuking" them daily.

What we have is a biological problem, and it requires a biological solution. One effing bug that comes from B.F. egypt, a pair of tiny islands where the bugs are on their way to being placed on the endangered species list (kidding, although in their native habitat they are well controlled). As I understand it, several species of parasitic wasps that are partial to the JB have already been released, however their populations are nowhere near high enough to combat the immense population of the beetle.

And asking all of the local farmers to help kill the local japanese beetle population would be asking them to spend the $ on chemical, most likely sevin, and spend the $ on diesel to run the sprayer through the field, probably 5$ per acre for the insecticide and 2$ per acre for the fuel. $7 per acre times 1000 acres.... is a bit too much to ask for local people to ask to help solve a problem that will be over in a month anyways, AND it does nothing to stop the influx of new beetles from adjoining land next year. AND it would mean spraying an indiscriminate chemical all over everything, which would hurt local good bug populations.

And no, box elder are a million times creepier than the JB.

{{gwi:74562}}
Box elder

{{gwi:74563}}
Japanese beetle

And as quickly as it began, it was over. The beetles are much thinner now. Where there were dozens before, now there are only a few. Maybe it was the spray, maybe it was the lack of food and the lack of water around, or maybe the birds finally found the buffet, but I think the main push of the swarm is over with.

They were around much longer last year... weird.

When it comes to farm fields, I believe that the JB beetles are mostly on the outer[perimeter] 15 feet of the fields, so indiscriminate spraying may not be necessary. I have observed this pattern. Bugs have built in "habits". Learn their habits and you can zero in on them.

Take squash bugs, for example. These bugs will remain until the squash are dead. They move to the last remaining green foliage and fruits. If you then in the fall will spend a little bit of time in foot squashing ALL the bugs that have congregated, you can pretty well wipe out the population...I did it. I also one year did it on my neighbor's too...that helps too.

Three years ago I applied Milky spore to my 1.5 acre lot and then sprayed beneficial nematodes the following year. The past two years have been pretty much Japanese beetle free. Don't know if i was lucky or the bio-controls worked. Planning to re-apply the beneficial nematodes this year.

Wow! I'm having flashbacks to when I was a kid and the jb's were everywhere. As soom as the grass turned brown at the start of July or so they were all over and they didn't really care what they chewed on. Whether it was grape vines, vegetables or humans.

I know the basic beetle larvae in the soil and it probably helps to till a lot and remove. I'm wondering about other remedies though.

I often joke with my dog i'm going to buy her a friend, Chicken! lol I'm in the city and she eats chicken so that's where I find amusement in it. Would chickens take care of beetles? I really don't know. I know they eat bugs but would they eat them? Just throwing out ideas.

We used to use traps that stunk and electric bug zappers however I always remember a plethora in the pool the next morning. They were relentless here in the early late 70's-80's

Chris -- loads of good ideas above for the JB's. You are destined to win! (power of positive thinking.)

But about that there dream of yours.
I know of two farms (one run by close friends, one run by my niece and her husband) that are 'making it.' In addition to other sales like restaurants, farmers markets, and stores, both run CSA's and have also incorporated the element of education into the financial structure. As you mentioned, people are used to paying next to nothing for their food. But people are used to paying big bucks for their kids to have something to do after school, or for their company to have some team building time, or for themselves to be entertained on Saturday. These farms run programs where they get kids and adults to work the gardens and pay for this privlege! It just needs to be couched in terms of education and/or entertainment. (Quick example: it's a history lesson, a short talk about who was growing gardens in the mid 1800's -- Native Americans, slaves, and free people. Let's choose an identity from one of these three . . . now let's weed! Does this give at least a vague idea of what I'm talking about?)

If this sounds interesting, I can write more about it. Would it work in an area where everyone is a farmer? I dunno. But it sounds as though even though everyone is farming in your area, maybe not everyone is growing food to eat?

Dreams are meant to be pursued.

Here is a link that might be useful: the button farm

Not really sure of how these things could be introduced or where one would get them but just tossing them out there. I think someone hinted at them above.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/346200

You've got to scroll down a bit to see the description of the fly. They basically lay eggs right on the JB's back. Maybe it's an idea that could be introduced to the local farms? Print out a postcard of the fly and eggs on the JB's back with a short description and maybe those farmers will do something? Just an idea but if you've got a JB problem, they probably do too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Istocheta aldrichi

Say do those JB's have cellphones or something? I hadn't seen one this year only to find one under my shirt a little while ago biting my shoulder! lol

Don't have them in those numbers because my neighbors don't plant what they like to eat! JBs do gnaw on my eggplant and of course, raspberries. I've even seen them eat Brussels sprout leaves.

I hand pick them. They are easy to catch--they like the upper canopy of the plant. They practically fall into my soapy water dish on their own (they instinctively "fall" off the leaf when predators approach.

Once, I sprayed my Brussels with spinosad for ICM larvae. Interestingly, there were several dead JBs on the leaves the next day. Spinosad seems to kill them. Just a thought.