japaneese beetles

Help
I live in the northeast and have been inundated with Japaneese Beetles every summer. I pick off at least 70 a day.. Can anybody help with a suggestion to help relieve the situation before my garden becomes a parking lot..
mother four

MF (?) we too were inundated last year with waves of Japanese Beetles in our veggie garden. I have done some reading and a non-scientific study and here is what I found...

They generally are grubbing in a nearby lawn, so you can treat that area with something like Doom or Japademic (botanicals). You will be fixed for years unless your neighbors' beetles come to visit. We have a small lawn below our garden and they seem to come up to the first crop on the garden edge closest to the lawn. This was pole beans last year. I am convinced that my readings were corrrect about the lawn source because bush beens that were ten feet deeper in the garden were not bothered. The beetles were going to the closest food source. I started keeping cups of water, hand picking, and throwing the beetles in the water. The cups were on short posts in the garden. I let the beetles drown and discovered that we would be beetle free for weeks. Could the drowning beetles be giving off some chemical that kept the others away? I don't know but that's my plan for this year.

Some have reported success with milky spore or beneficial nematodes.

I can finally jump in here with something potentially useful.

Larval stage, which is in the fall is the best time to get them...right now, they are almost to deep to kill with many of the pesticides that are available. In regard to milky spore, it is a great thing to reduce the grubs, BUT, studies are showing now that in a z5 climate it is to cold and they tend not to form a valid/viable colony to do any real damage, if any at all. Beneficial nematodes would more than likely be what to use.
What I'm learning in this MG class is this: Learn the life cycle of what you want to begone, and plan accordingly. After the JB lay their eggs, when these eggs hatch, the grubs are close to the surface of the soil (fall/late summer) and it is the best time to get them. If you are using milky spore, and it does colonize in your lawn, that does not mean it will colonize in an adjoining lawn. In the winter time, the grubs burrow anywhere from 1-3 FEET below the soil line...treating at this point is almost useless. Once the larva begin to go into the pupa stage, the treatments that are available are almost pointless. AND...the phermone traps that you see being sold....PUT THEM as FAR away from where you want the JB to be trapped. The traps actually pull/lure the JB toward it.
I hope this helped. Without sounding to MGish...contact your local county extension service, for your area, and they can specifically tell you when you should/shouldn't start some sort of IPM for Japanese Beatles. One word of note, the milky spore that Victor mentioned are only good for use on Japanese Beatles, not any other type of grub/larva. The beneficial nematodes could help on other grubs!

I am going with the milky spore this year.... going to put it down when i am home... and before a rain.... a local landscaper told me it might take a few years to really make an impact... but it's better than nothing

Yes, milky spore takes several years to spread out and become effective but it's worth it from what I've heard. I use the traps, last year I caught 5 quart size jars full of them. I also put down Grub-X in the early spring. Some years are worse than others. Last year was real bad.

We used milky spore a few years ago. Last year hardly any JB. I always look for them and drown them like all of you. I have heard they give off a scent when they find a good food source, that's why they all seem to be bunched together. Get the first bunches of the little devils and the others from other yards may not get the "Eat at Joes" message. I also kill any white grubs I find when planting. My motto is try everything except poisons to get them and any pest.

Are they eatable? If so we should all save them and send them to the Suvivor Series.

I just don't see how treating your own lawn will work when they can come from next door!

Well, we treat our lawns - and yes, some do come from next store - but our treated lawns were MUCH healthier than when we left the lawn untreated.

They come from the next store - do you buy them?

Too early - not enough coffee. Meant to write "next door"

You know I am kidding right......

Of course ^_^

Victor, Doom and Japademic are milky spore, but ms is no longer sold under those names. My mistake. I will continue the pick and drown method for now. Still wondering if, just as the beetles signal friends to come feast, they emit something while drowning that keeps the others away.

Hem, thanks for all the factoids. 1-3 feet? I've always wondered if you dig up grubs, and pitch them off to the side, can they figure out how to get back down in the ground.

Since "lawn" was a figurative term when speaking of what grows downhill to our garden we won't lose sleep about the dandelions, violets and oxalis :).

Hi,
Thank you for all your replies. I don't know how the larvae could exist in our lawn since grass doesn't seem to want to grow. I have used milky spores and hope this year will be better. I have yet to see and grubs in our lawn. motherfour

My property has been treated with Milky Spore for nearly twenty years. It kills all white grubs not just the JB. The major unseen benefit is that the larva do not eat the dickens out of the plant roots on your property. Fly ins are another issue but it is they that extend the life of Milky Spore in your soil as they lay eggs and new larva contact the disease and make more spore in process. You still have to fight fly ins however you wish. My property has two trap crops...grapes and peaches. I treat only those two items. This gets the most of them. A few get by me but they lay eggs and create larva which will die if the Milky Spore is still working.

I retreated my property three years ago. That should be good for the rest of my remaining life. Surely for the rest of my gardening days.

Good to know Doc. Thanks.

L