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On Jul 20, 2006, at 12:10 PM, Kieran and Donna wrote:

. . .

When we bought the place, Milky Spore was not available, so I brought dirt from where we lived in east TN and dried and sieved it, figuring that if it took 16 years to protect the place instead of 2 years, that would still be better than nothing. I don't know if it's working, but sometimes I find whitish skinny grubs and put them back in the ground. 

    For those of you on the leading edge of the wave - Japanese beetles are moving westward at about 10 miles a year, the third year is usually the worst.  If you will spend the money on Milky Spore, it is supposed to cut the population by 75% in 2 years, by 96% in 6 years.  We bought the granulated stuff that you can't get anymore, and pitched it as thin and as far as it would go.  At my grandmothers we tossed it on the neighbor's yard as far as we could.  The disease only moves at 5 FEET a year, so it really needs some human help.                         Donna

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I put down milky spore when I moved here, 9 years ago.  I get a few Japanese beetles, but not enough to bother doing anything about.  I noticed 3 skeletonized grape leaves and a few holes in the raspberry leaves, and that's it this year.  

I don't know if the milky spore helped, since I never tried doing without, but my guess is that it did.  Most of my neighbors use chemical grub control, so I don't get a huge number of beetles from them.

My father tried a japanese beetle trap years ago.  Wow!  Did that thing collect beetles.  The risk is that you might pull some in from your neighbors' yards, but it does take a lot of them out of the breeding pool.  

Ginda