This year the Japanese beetle situation in my backyard here in SE PA is simply dire - I have just disposed of the nine's bag, which probably gets the total close to 12-15 pounds of bugs so far, and they keep coming! The usual amount is perhaps 3-4 bags a season, and usually I don't dispose of them because they are overflowing like this year, only because they start smelling awful. This year I've also sprayed heavily, so the amount of bugs killed is staggering, yet they keep coming.
It just so happened that I put the first two traps up maybe a week in advance of actually seeing the first bug. This got me thinking that perhaps I have brought this on myself by attracting the first bugs by the lure of the traps? And then the consequent waves of bugs are just attracted by the previous ones? Has anyone seen use of Japanese beetle traps to actually increase the amount of bugs?
I should add that I don't really have a place to put them 30 feet away from the yard, like the description on the trap calls for, I have some oak trees about
10 feet or so from the property line, and that's the farthest I can put the traps. Regardless, the leaves are destroyed in close proximity to the traps as well as some 30-40 ft away.So, what's the word on usefulness of the traps in the gardening community?