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Re: A Summation On Japanese Beetles

Any ideas out there on how horses - or other grazing animals - affect the Japanese Beetle poplulation?

Because they graze the grass down low, one assumes this would invite the Beetles to move in -

R.


Jeff Ball wrote:

This has been an interesting thread for a number of reasons. One
pattern which is generally universal is to approach a pest insect
problem as something that can be solved by a single technique - traps,
insecticide, nematodes, or whatever. Americans deal with the problem at
hand with one or more of these techniques and then wait for it to come
back; which it usually does in the following year. The other pattern
which I prefer is to take an ecological approach to any pest insect
problem; it almost always works in the long run.
Japanese beetles prefer to lay their eggs in grass, often turfgrass.
However, they really don't like to lay their eggs in grass that is
taller than 2 inches, for some reason. If a homeowner mows his or her
lawn at 2 and 1/2 inches and overseeds every three or four years the
result is a very dense tall turf. If broad spectrum insecticides are
never used on the lawn, tall dense turf, by definition will attract many
species of ants, spiders, and ground beetles, the three most important
beneficial insects in any home landscape. Research in the late 80's
determined that when a healthy population of these three good critters
is present, over 80% of the eggs laid by a Japanese beetle will be
consumed by those guys within 48 hours!!!
Someone observed that certain birds, the ones usually despised, will eat
Japanese beetle adults and grubs and that is true; especially starlings.

Below the soil, we know that predatory nematodes will do a number on
grubs if applied correctly. But why go to the trouble? If the soil in
the garden and under the turf is given an annual amendment of organic
material of some kind, the soil food web is going to be alive and well.
There are nematodes naturally in that soil food web. If we knocked off
85% of the beetle eggs 48 hours after they were laid, then what does
survive into next season is going to be further reduced by the natural
nematodes and the song birds. Ground beetles also love to chomp on
beetle adults. I have lived in a situation in the suburbs of Philadelphia where for 15
years we had few or no Japanese beetles while the neighbors on each side
of our property always had beetle problems. So raise the lawn mower, overseed the lawn to make it dense, never use
any broad spectrum insecticides, never use any traps, attract the birds
and the beneficial insects, and feed the soil food web. That's how to
deal with Japanese beetles.
Later,
Jeff Ball
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