North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["kieran or donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

>I was told by one of the agents at the
Clarksville, AR station they were testing an
experimental Mlkyspore trap that captured the beetles
an dusted the bug and let it go, there by inoculating
the soil were the eggs are laid.

Oh, what clever people!!!  Why didn't anyone think of this before?  Though
as my husband says, it would really hurt to let the dang beetles go after
catching them!
    We have plenty of Japanese beetles, though maybe not as many as some
because they are said to like nice short grass, and mostly we have trees and
pasture around us.  When we bought our place, there was no Milky Spore
available, so I got some dirt from back in East Tenn where we had spread the
stuff 10 yrs earlier at a rental house and my grandmother's house.  I dried
and sieved the dirt and threw it around, I am sure that by now we have got
about as much Milky Spore in our soil as if we had bought the stuff
recently.
    No, we aren't spraying.  Mostly the beetles go for the plums, they want
to eat them right up.  And also the beans, some roses, the cannas, the
cherries, my little stunted apple trees, but the defoliation is not nearly
so bad on them.  When they hit in east TN, we were in a rental house with
two big sweet cherries.  The beetles defoliated them several times a year
till they were so weakened they up and died.  So you can lose trees.  But
for the most part the damage tends to get spread around, and apart from the
plums and grapes, nothing loses all it's leaves.  I'm about ready to see if
I can buy Neem locally, or put in my long postponed Fedconorder.
    For years my approach has to been to go around with a small bucket with
half an inch of water in the bottom, I knock them off the plants and throw
them by the handful to the chickens.  The hens go crazy every time they lay
eyes on me this time of year, they like beetles that much.  If it were just
orchard we were dealing with, we might let the hens out, but they do too
much damage in the garden.  The guineas, ducks, and muscovy ducks have been
very interesting to watch.  When they reach up high to get a low-hanging
beetle, they tend to catch or jostle the leaf it's on and that shakes down a
few more.  In this heat they are likely to fly rather than fall, but enough
fall to keep the guineas hanging around my plum trees.  I see plainly that
these birds are not going to save my roses or much of anything else from
Japanese beetles, esp the ones in trees that they just can't reach.   But
they do reduce the numbers somewhat, converting the leaves I have lost into
protein as meat and eggs for the table.
For those of you who are so afflicted, the slug population has taken a
nosedive since the ducks were  introduced.  Unfortunately the frog and
salamander population is also affected.  Oddly enough, they also eat grass
and dandelion seeds, so it is kind of mind boggling to think how the garden
will change.  I know it will, but have no idea how much or which way.  It
has changed so much already.  For example, "broom sedge", which my mother
knew by the more descriptive name "poverty grass" quickly disappeared from
our garden area.  It indicates low pH, low N, low P.  But it was replaced en
masse for 2 years by another weed called "Poorjoe" which tells me that we
were a long way from perfect.  But Poorjoe also dropped out of the weed
population, and now we get a much better class of weeds, including chickweed
and redroot pigweed, which to my mind are indicators of pretty decent soil.
If the pigweed looks a bit yellow or stunted, I know I have a problem.  (On
the other hand, if it's looking really good, it's swamping out my crop
plants!)  If any of you know of any other useful indicator weeds, I'd like
to hear about them.  I have the 2 books put out by ACRES USA but can't tell
they are all that much help.
One weed I find interesting is purslane, called "plant mercury" in China
because it concentrates mercury.  If I remember correctly, you can get 2 oz
mercury per ton of plant.  Anyway, it won't grow in our garden.  I have
bought seeds several times, and accidently imported it in some dirt from
elsewhere.  It wimps out and next year, it's all gone.  What do you call a
weed when it's not a weed?  That's all for now.  Donna