How to Protect Your Plants from Beetles

This week’s garden tip was submitted by Wally Schmidtke, sales manager at .

The beetles are coming, and not the ones from Liverpool! Right now Japanese beetles are pupating into beetles. They've done some turf damage as grubs and as beetles they consume plant materials.

When beetles emerge in June, they begin feeding on the growing plants and then move to tree leaves. Adults skeletonize leafs, eating the tissue between the veins. Attacked leaves are laced and soon wither and die.

Earlier:

Adult beetles feed on over 400 species of broadleaved plants but they prefer about 50 species. Beetles also enjoy eating flower bulbs and fruit.

Japanese beetles, Porphyria Japonica, are a brilliant metallic green color, oval in shape, about 5/8-inch long by ¼-inch wide. The wing covers are copper brown and the abdomen has a row of five tufts of white hairs on each side. The males have a sharp tip on the foreleg tibia while the female has a long rounded tip.

An adults' life span is 30-45 days. Before they die females lay eggs, which hatch into the notorious lawn grub.

Natural and Organic Controls

Adult beetles prefer to lay their eggs in short grass. Cut your lawns no shorter than 2.5 inches and the beetles will lay eggs elsewhere. Mowing tall gives the grasses the ability to develop a strong root system.

Cut back on your summer watering. Moist conditions promote the hatching of newly laid eggs by the beetles.

Japanese Beetle traps can attract beetles to your yard from a half-block away. Avoid using traps unless you're monitoring beetle populations in an orchard or commercial area.

Pick the beetles by hand and toss them into a bucket of soapy water, a shop vacuum also works well. The more beetles you have, the more you'll get. They sense other feeding beetles by pheromones. Beetles can also detect damaged diseased plants or rotting fruits and vegetables. Removing the beetles will decrease damage to plant materials and quantities that will migrate to your yard.

Insecticides

Dr. Earth Pro-Active is formulated with essential oils and garlic extract to knock down and kill insects quickly, the results are apparent from immediately to several minutes. Garlic extract has been proven to repel insects for several weeks or longer.

Dr. Earth Pro-Active works by blocking a chemical neurotransmitter, Octopamine, that controls body movement and metabolism in insects and mites. The interference of these signals leads to metabolic toxicity, immobilization and, ultimately, death.

Visit Pesche’s Flower Shop and Garden Center to learn more about insecticides and controlling beetles.

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