Japanese beetle control

[Stressbaby]

I've been really good about keeping up with my spray schedule. Vineyeard looked great a week ago. Went out of town for a week and applied a bit of Sevin before I left because I saw a handful of Japanese beetles.

Came back to severe damage. I'd say 1/3 of my vines are completely 100% skeletonized, not an intact leaf left. I immediately sprayed and will go back today and check and spray again if needed.

My question is, is there any sort of preventative I can use? I will have to leave town occasionally during June and July and I hate to think I face this sort of damage upon my return every time. Wondering about a systemic like imidacloprid. This reference gives a PHI of 60 days.

Will post some pics if I can get my email server to connect, but trust me it's pretty ugly.

 

[salcoco]

there is a bacterium that you can inoculate into the soil. this bacteria feed on the larvae of the beetle. it takes about three years or so to have a large area filled with the bacterium. search on line for details. other than that have some one spray while you are away.

 

[Stressbaby]

 

[Stressbaby]

 

[Johnd]

View attachment 49460

Oh wow!! That’s truly a terrible sight!! Will the vines push out new leaves if you snip off the damaged leaves?

 

[Stressbaby]

Oh wow!! That’s truly a terrible sight!! Will the vines push out new leaves if you snip off the damaged leaves?

No clue. We'll see.

 

[Masbustelo]

I'm curious, what state are you in?

 

[Stressbaby]

Missouri.
Here are some more pics. I've got a few vines like the second pic. Think I should remove those grapes?

 

[Masbustelo]

I would say remove the grapes. Without leaves I don't see how they can ripen. I would think removing them will help the plants recover for next year. Maybe some one with more experience could correct me however.

 

[KevinL]

That's nightmare fuel stuff right there. I just saw my first beetle of the season yesterday (Northern Illinois, Chicago Suburbs), and have the Sevin ready to go for tomorrow. I'm not planning on heading out of town for the Majority of beetle season so I'll be able to stay on top of them.

I did look into Milky spore, but for me I don't know how much it will help someone like me. It is supposed to help but they can fly a great distance so unless you own all of the land around you so that you can put Milky Spore down, you're stuck with sprays.I doubt I could convince all of my neighbors to throw some Milky spore down.

From what I've read, Traps can end up attracting more beetles than they can actually kill, so unless you place them on the edges of your property away from grapes you end up with more beetles than you would have gotten even without the traps.

I'm a newbie, so take my thoughts for what you think they're worth. I'd remove the grapes and go into save the vine mode. I can't think that there will be enough leaf area on those vines to bring anything to ripeness after they've been completely defoliated like that. If I went outside and my vines looked like that I'd be pretty devastated. Hopefully they recover well!

 

[Stressbaby]

The Traminette, hardest hit of the vines with grapes, seems to be self-pruning anyway.

All of the vines are pushing out new leaves at each node. I'll take some pics in a week or two in order to compare.

Yeah, like I said, 10 days ago the vineyard looked pretty darn good for year 2. Very disappointing but I guess these are the lessons you learn. Stay on top of the beetles.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

I use Altacor, usually just need it once or twice a season on my small 30 or so vines in the backyard, but it clears the Japanese beetles out within a couple of days.

 

[user 36973]

The Japanese beetles began appearing here in central Indiana about a week ago.

One possible solution would be to apply the carbaryl spray at its maximum rate along with a sticker to help extend its effectiveness while you are away. My local crop specialist has a product he suggested using called "BondMax" as a good sticker. It runs about $35/gal.

I tank mixed carbaryl along with mancozeb for my last spray. The "DF Roper Rainshield" formulation of the mancozeb I use includes some sort of rain-fast agent already.

 

[marquettematt]

Oh wow!! That’s truly a terrible sight!! Will the vines push out new leaves if you snip off the damaged leaves?

It will push new leaves.

Missouri.
Here are some more pics. I've got a few vines like the second pic. Think I should remove those grapes?View attachment 49477 View attachment 49476

OH man! That's an atrocity! I thought I had bad beetles this year. I'd pull clusters. That's a HUGE hit to vine health and how it'll harden off. Leaving clusters is too great a risk.. For the sake of experimentation, I might leave some clusters on early ripeners just to see how they manage. Could work out okay if you're in the southern part of MO and have a longer season. Edit- If its only in its 2nd year, I wouldn't have clusters any way.

 

[Scooter68]

There are also several good sprays with neem oil and Pyrethrin that are both effective and safe for use up to the day of harvest.
Like all such things there are two downsides to it. It's wicked dangerous if you have bees or bee hives in the area. and it is also short lived, meaning even bees are going to be safe within a few days after its' use.

Also I've had far less trouble with Japanese Beetles since I stopped using traps. We have 17 acres in a generally long rectangular shape. Even if I put traps at the far end at least 1/10-2/10 of a mile away, it still increased the beetle problems. I use Fertilome Triple Action and it is supposed to also provide some fungicide help as well.

I would like to use milky spore but with as much field area as we have it would break the bank to do that. It is supposed to be very effective and essentially permanent in eliminating the beetles from wintering over on your place. In developments the recommend that neighborhoods commit to everyone using it to to achiever effective results.

Sorry for those losses folks - that is truly a heart breaker, even if the vines recover.

 

[mikewatkins727]

Search Amazon for beneficial nematodes.

 

[Stressbaby]

I’ve used Neem for years in the greenhouse. Neem does not kill the bugs like standard insecticides do. It has multiple mechanisms of action but mostly it’s a growth regulator. So usually it doesn’t kill adult insects, just keeps larvae from becoming adults and keeps adults from reproducing. Not what I needed with this level of damage.

Many of the clusters on the badly damaged vines have dried up. I suspect they were directly damaged by the beetles. I’ve cut many other clusters off.

I had a visit from a vineyard consultant from Herrmann who agreed with letting these vines fruit year two. They are all hybrids and apparently my site is unusually fertile.

 

[Brigitte]

hi Stressbaby,
I am also from Missouri and the beetles just suck. I hate them with a passion. We have started using Mustang Maxx this year plus got a decent sprayer that really blasts the sprays.
so far ( knock on wood) we have stayed ahead of damage. But last year we had vines that looked just like yours. they did come out of it and regrow foliage. Best of luck to you with
your vineyard.
Brigitte

 

[kyle5434]

I'm on the eastern edge of KS and have been battling them the past 2 weeks as well. I've been using neem, but it doesn't appear to be particularly effective on the beetles. I currently only have 4 vines on the south side of house, and I've found that using a 32 oz. hand-held spray bottle with around an inch of Dawn dish washing liquid then filled with water kills them dead in about a minute if sprayed directly on the beetles, but it's a pain to play that game every morning and evening. I thought I had them taken care of last weekend, as there weren't any new beetles showing up for a couple days, but today they were back again with a vengeance.

 

[Stressbaby]

The affected grape clusters at my site look generally like this: http://articles.extension.org/pages/31602/green-june-beetle-damage-to-grapes

This site has some very good information on rain fast-ness: http://www.isaacslab.ent.msu.edu/Images/talks/Isaacs Viticulture 2010 JB for web.pdf

As far as residue goes, Sevin is just about gone after an inch of rain. We had 2" today. However, the beetle control is just about as good as anything else, even after 1" rain. See slide 24. Consistent with that, slide 20 indicates that with biweekly Sevin you will still get 10-20% defoliation. Weekly applications keep things under very good control, under 5% defoliation.