japanese beetles, selecting for smarter jbs, etc.

[songbird]

today wandering around checking things out in a spot i hadn't looked for a few days previous i noticed that the japanse beetles had finally found the soybeans. they usually are flying around here or there, but not so many as to cause a lot of damage. previous years they were more often on the grapes and other soybeans but this year i'm not growing any "normal" soybeans and instead am growing the edamame type.

this was different. for some reason they really like the edamame soybeans i planted and they were doing at least two of the four effs. i picked eight of them off the plants and squished them on a stepping stone and left them in the sun to dry and hopefully get eaten by the birds.

whoever posted the idea about freezing them and putting them in the birdfeeders, well that was an excellent idea, but if you don't have birdfeeders you can still leave them in a conspicuous place where the birds can find them and hope for the best.

so as a magnet crop (attract the bugs away from the other surrounding plants where you can pick them off) edamame soybeans sure look to be good. all the surrounding bean plants had minimal damage (probably most of it from grasshoppers) and the soybeans were getting chewed up.

ok, but back to the subject line. the person who posted a while ago asking if they were breeding smarter japanese beetles by getting those that didn't fly away. here if i get out in the morning early enough they are not very active and can be picked easily. a little while later after it warms up they fly away a lot easier. so for best results in hand picking get them early.

in other news, all the garlic is in, nice harvest (probably around 20lbs) and my experiments with different soils/methods are going to be useful for continuing. will have to write that up some other time. everbearing strawberries on their second crop. cherry tomatoes just starting to ripen, other tomatoes usually a few weeks later. peppers, squash, cucumbers all coming along and doing well.

ok, back to work, gotta check the beans today. inch of rain last night, nice day, gotta get a second coat of varnish on the clothes rack.

peace,

songbird

[Billy]

Hell hath no fury like gardeners protecting their plants.

[phorbin]

Use evening primrose as a trap crop for japanese beetles.

[songbird]

uhg! sorry, no more primroses here, there are wild ones rambling around, and we accidentally planted some brighter yellow with a great smell once, but those were too much and we took them out (three years of weeding later i think they are gone, but don't quote me on that).

thanks, but i think i'll stick to the more easily managed edamame soybeans. ;)

songbird

[phorbin]

To each his own.

I suggested evening primrose, oenothera biennis, because it's the plant around here that first draws greatest numbers of japanese beetles to itself. -- Then they move on to other plants.

Then there's borage (borago officinalis), Geraniums (pelargonium), African Marigolds (Tagetes), etc.

[phorbin]

I'm just reporting what I see here. -- A quick lookup suggests some authorities agree.

Your beetles may have more refined tastes than ours.

They don't seem to like our attar of roses geranium though... so it may be down to variety.

-- And in this overheated SW Ontario town, we're having a small plague of the japanese beetles.