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[nottke1 <nottke1@earthlink.net>]

On our farm here in Z7 west of Winston-Salem, NC, I usually see my first Japanese Beetle in early June and by June 25 I am mixing up Sevin to control them on plum, grape, and raspberry.  But this year I saw my first one on June 1, and I have seen less than a dozen since.  Local Ag folkss speculate that our severe drought and incredible heat last summer somehow hurt their grubs.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Haigh
Sent: Jul 2, 2008 8:06 PM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Japanese beetle invasions

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?

Jim Nottke
Pfafftown, NC