GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - japanese beetles, selecting for smarter jbs, etc.

phorbin · 04-08-2012, 07:38 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible

In article , slywlf54
@hvc.rr.com says...
On 8/1/2012 5:30 PM, phorbin wrote:
In article ,
says...
phorbin wrote:
songbird says...

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.

Use evening primrose as a trap crop for japanese beetles.

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.

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.

Interesting - I have geraniums and evening primrose, yet the only J
beetles I've seen so far have been burrowing in my heirloom roses :-(

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.