It's a beetle invasion! No, not the British Beatles, but Japanese Beetles, wreaking havoc on lawns, plants and gardens here in the Valley.
"They're an insect that is an herbivore, and herbivores love plants," says David Goerig, Horticulture Educator at the OSU Mahoning County Extension.
"Roses they especially love. We always have the most beetles here in our rose gardens," says Dennis Penner, Grounds Supervisor at Fellows Riverside Gardens.
Japanese Beetles don't carry disease, and won't bite humans, but that doesn't mean they're not a nuisance, chewing right through leaves, trees, and occasionally buzzing by, or dive-bombing your head when you're outside.
"I've probably eaten several of them. They keep coming up out of the ground like that," says John Mancini, cutting yards for Sharp Cut Lawn Care and Landscape Contractors.
People can go out and buy the "Bag-A-Bug" beetle traps to catch and capture the beetles, but as you can imagine, they're filling up fast. Experts say this time of year is peak eating and mating season, when females release pheromones to attract the male beetles. "They have been able to manufacture this scent and put it into a Bag-A-Bug, so what you're doing is you're actually catching all adult males," says Goerig. "You'd want to put them someplace away from your yard, if you have a vacant lot or a field behind your house or something," adds Penner.
Especially dry or wet springs can sometimes dry out, or drown Japanese Beetle grubs and keep the population down, but there's really nothing you can do to stop their life cycle. Goerig says, "This year we seem to be having a normal, somewhat normal, growing season, and our beetle populations are reflecting that."
There are chemical treatments, some better for the environment than others, but maybe the best way, if you have the time and patience, is to take a bucket of water out to your plants and pick the beetles off the leaves and put them into the water to drown them.
