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["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

It's pretty mysterious to me how the Japanese beetles are distributed  around here.  I was at a site today where there are two 50 tree orchards seperated by a few hundred yards.  Both orchards have about 10 Japanese and European plums in the mix.  For the last two years one site has had the plums completely infested with Japanese beetles while the other has hardly any.  The infested site's apples and peaches are also suffering or were suffering before being coated with Sevin.  The floor of both orchards are very similar as is the soil. 

 

I have orchards I manage that are just a couple miles apart on land, soil and turf nearly identical, one will be infested the other not.  The beetles have been really bad this and last year and the sites that are infested this year were infested last year.  Any entomologists out there wish to comment?