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["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

I read years ago re Milky Spore that beetle numbers were reduced by 75% in 2 
years, by 95% in 6 years.  Back in the TN Valley we put down the stuff in 
'83 I think, and after a couple of years we had a sudden freeze that really 
cut them back anyway, but after year that they were merely a nuisance, not a 
devasting force.  When they first arrived, they defoliated the large cherry 
trees on the property twice each summer till they died the second summer. 
So I knew that the dirt I brought over here was infected and worth the wait 
for the stuff to spread.   I wonder now and then if some of the grubs I find 
are infected, I drop those back in the ground and feed the healthy ones to 
the chickens.  But the sudden drop in number of grubs this past winter and 
spring must be due to either the drought or the terrible freeze last year. 
Probably the drought, as it would have both killed plants they were feeding 
on, and made it impossible to move through the rock hard clay to find 
another plant.     Donna