Beetles hit Lafayette earlier
than normal
By Laura Pelner
Summer
Reporter
Japanese beetles are back, and they’re active
this summer in the greater Lafayette area.
The beetles emerged earlier than usual this year,
beginning in mid-June as opposed to early to mid-July. While they are
already active, there is not an extremely large Japanese beetle population
this year in the Lafayette area.
Cliff Sadof, an associate professor of entomology,
said the beetle populations can be spotty, and that they’re not heavy
in this area now. "They can be heavy in certain locations and very
light in others," he said.
Furthermore, there are no trends for the Japanese
beetles regarding population and location because they move each year.
Sadof explained, "Where they’re heavy in one place, they’ll
be heavy all year, but next year they might move somewhere else."
The beetles have one generation a year and generally
fly for about 6 weeks starting in June and linger through August. Sadof
said they do most of their damage in July.
Japanese beetles feed on different plants including
trees and flowers. According to Purdue’s entomology Web site about
Japanese beetles, the insect can feed on more than 300 different species
of plants. The beetles especially enjoy roses, grapes, smartweed, soybeans,
corn silks, flowers of all kinds, flowering crab, plum and linden trees
and overripe or decaying fruit.
Most people try and kill as many Japanese beetles
as possible through various methods. Sadof said a lot of people buy beetle
traps, which are bags meant to catch the insect.
Sadof said, "People buy the trap because they
think it’s going to help, but they’re mistaken. They (the beetles)
fly too far. The Japanese beetle traps work in that they attract beetles,
but they probably bring more beetles into your yard."
Josh Inman, a sales associate in the lawn and garden
department at Wal-Mart, said a lot of people are buying the traps, as
well as other methods of beetle control.
Inman said, "We don’t really recommend
the traps, we recommend the sprays. The liquid concentrate is best; the
dust is pretty effective for gardens and ornamental plants. The traps
work as long as you keep them away from whatever they’re eating.
The trap attracts beetles so if you put it by your stuff they swarm and
kill it."
Both Wal-Mart and Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse
have sold out of Liquid Seven, a pesticide that kills Japanese
beetles.
Lynn Sterrett, the assistant manager of Lowe’s
said the stores supply of Liquid Seven is gone. "Liquid Seven spray
has been exhausted here. We had 48 bottles in this week and it was gone
in about a day," said Sterrett.
The pesticides can be effective in controlling the
Japanese beetle population, but Sadof urged people to realize that it
is near impossible to kill each bug. "Don’t try to get rid of
every last bug, you never can do it and it’s too expensive. It has
too much of an environmental impact."
Sterrett reiterated that thought. He paralleled the
Japanese beetles to flies and said you can kill one but another always
comes back.
Sterrett added, "They (the pesticides) are effective,
but there are so many beetles out there that you have to keep fighting
them."
Sadof said that it is not necessary to get rid of
every bug to have a nice yard. "You should tolerate them until they
start to bother you because there’s no reason to use pesticides unnecessarily.
If they bother you and make your plants ugly you can use a pesticide,"
he said.
Trees are actually resilient to the beetles. Sadof
explained that a tree can easily withstand up to 40 percent defoliation
before its health is effected.
He added, though, that most people get upset after
losing about 25 percent of the tree’s leaves.
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