Jap Beetles, Sevin, Vinyl siding

Looking for advice about how to protect my hops. I have 4 Cascade and 1 Magnum.

Last year the JB liked the Magnum but left the Cascades alone. This year I have some damage on the Cascades.

The Magnum is free standing and liquid Sevin worked like a charm. Some people say not to use Sevin because it will wind up in your beer, but the label has directions for everything from asparagus to tomatoes to peppers. The longest wait time on the label is 3 weeks. While I agree I don’t want pesticide in my beer, the label also says it is NOT absorbed by plants and is topical only.

So my question is this: Does anyone have experience with Sevin and the garden hose application near vinyl siding. I do not want to stain the entire south side of my house. The label says may stain stucco and brick and carpet but nothing about vinyl. Their FAQ says to only use on plant and no man made materials. I would like a real life experience.

Appreciate…

Paul

No experience with Sevin, but the simplest way to test is to pick a small area of siding that you don’t care too much about and then spray it with the correct dilution of the chemical and wait a couple days. Or if you don’t want to risk it, just get a big, cheap plastic drop cloth from Home Depot and tape it up on the siding.

Pesticides DO NOT WORK for Jap Beetles!!!

All you will be doing is wasting your time and money. There really is only one answer to this pest. There are traps you can buy and set out. they have a floral and sexual attractant. you set them up about 50 feet downwind of your plant(s) to protect. The trap is just a hourglass shapped bag atteched to a X shaped thing you hang the bag on. the bugs try to land on the x shaped plastic thing, it is slippery so they fall into the bag never to come out again. I chang ethe bags about once a week because the smell of dead bugs turns off the bugs and you want them turned on not off. You can also build one out of a 5 gal bucket. drill a hole in the top. fit a PVC piece into the hole and secure (glue or fitting). Go buy the attractant and stick it a few inches down the inside of the pipe. put a few inches of water in the bucket, put on the top and place as menitoned above. I have a 1/4 acre garden and three traps along the eastern border (30-50 feet away) does the job. I add all the corpses (thousands) to the compost pile after I make sure they are dead (I pull the full bags, put them in a sealed bucket with some water in it and set it out in the sun for a few days).

I hate these bugs!

Barry

You have to be careful with the JB traps. They have a tendency to lure in more beetles than they catch, which would result in a bigger issue than you started with.

And Sevin does work for Japanese Beetles. I don’t use it, but you should see the mess of dead beetles in my neighbor’s yard.

no beetles yesterday, today grapes, raspberries, and hops all have visitors. I read the instructions on the bottle of malation I use for my roses and apples and there are instructions for the raspberries harvest possible one day after use. Will this work for hops? Thanks.

So far the Sevin applied with the garden hose has not stained the siding.

It kills JB’s immediately. The ingredient is not absorbed by the plant so as long as it does not get trapped inside of a cone and is used only on leaves and spurs it should be safe enough.

I’d rather not have to do anything but they would have stripped the bines in a day if I hadn’t sprayed.

I don’t know what the truth about the traps actually is, but the Iowa State Ag Extension recommends against the traps and claims studies that show the only traps a small percentage of what they attract. I wish the traps were all I needed.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/articl ... se-beetles

Can Japanese beetles be effectively controlled by using traps?
In a word, no. Several kinds of traps are available that use a floral scent and/or sex attractant to lure beetles into a net, jar or bag where the beetles can be contained till disposed of. In heavily-infested areas, traps may catch hundreds or thousands of beetles in the course of the summer. Unfortunately, this is a small percentage of the beetles in the area and makes no lasting impact on the beetle population or on the plant damage experienced.

The use of traps is not recommended. Research conducted in Kentucky and elsewhere found the traps do not control moderate to heavy infestations. The traps may attract more beetles than they catch and actually add more beetles to the yard than would occur otherwise.

In isolated locations far away from other Japanese beetle infestations, and in very lightly-infested areas, trapping may provide some benefit. Otherwise, traps will not make a difference.

Good to hear about the Sevin smackin down the JBs. I posted a few weeks ago. viewtopic.php?f=28&t=110393&start=0

Last year they ripped my hops and raspberries to shreds and just over the weekend they made their appearance for the season. Sevin will be served up as a welcome back gesture. :wink:
I too am concerned that any pesticide will get stored in the cones. Even though I haven’t got full cone development yet, those buggers will be around for the full season and will likely need to apply when cones are developed.

Baratone Brewer cautioned against using Neem oil in the heat of the day so as to prevent plant damage, with the heat wave we have now I wonder if Sevin needs the same care.

BTW- Revenge is sweet. This helps with that. http://www.harborfreight.com/electronic … 40122.html

[quote=“Brew On”] BTW- Revenge is sweet. This helps with that. http://www.harborfreight.com/electronic … 40122.html[/quote]Do those swatters actually work? Can you zap yourself if you brush it against your leg?

Yes. :o Gives a very nice sting. The JBs are tough, they sit and sizzle on it. When a 'squito gets hit it is a loud snap.

The swatters do work. Bubt you arn’t gonna kill all that many.

I have done years with peticides and years without (using traps).

The traps. Do they work. I do still have some beetles in the garden but not very many and the damage they did/do is minimal. I do catch a massive amount. They seem to be far more interested in the traps than the plants.

The pesticides. they will kill the bugs on contact … but … they will be back (from the surroundings) in force way before you should be pesticiding again. what I mean to say is what happen to me is I was applying pesticied basically weekly to kill that one pest. That is too often for something I am going to consume. Additionally this is in my opinion the “nuclear” approach. I only started thinking this way 2 years ago. It was lazyness that caused it. I just never sprayed one year. Nothing. The only attempt I made at insect control was the traps. My garden has never been better. This year was the best ever (even though I am irrigating like crazy).

Thus do the traps work? No the better question is do the pesticides work better than the traps? Considering I am going to consume this material, I am gonna have to vote that in the end equation going a more organic approace seems ot be working quite well for me in my garden.

Barry

Swatter is just for payback. :mrgreen:

I get ya. they make a great zap. I take my agression out of carpenter bees.

I think carpenter bees are actually beneficial insects. Some people promote the presence of solitary bees by drilling holes in their garden fence posts.

Bees are really only interested in pollinating your plants, so I don’t know why you’d be out to get them. Wasps on the other hand, are the devil’s own spawn.

They may be benificial in the garden but they are hell on any woden structure. They are a serious home structure pest. I actually had to have a house tented in Savannah Ga before a sale would close do to these critters. SO even though they do not sting - yep I wack the heck out of them.

Barry

BTW i dont go after them unless they are around wooden structures. In other words, if they stay out in the garden and don’t eat on my house them they get to live. As to wasps you would not beleive the number of benificial non stinging wasps that are a part of my mostly organic garden. I dont mess with them at all as they don’t try to digest my house.

The traps use a sex pheromone to attract the beetles. IME about half of them stop on your plants to get a snack just before trying to to get laid. Nothing quite like adding the buffet to an orgy.

I contacted Spectracide and they said “Malathion” based products ARE NOT I repeat NOT SAFE for use on hops. I figure if the manufacturer themselves says don’t use I should pass it on.

OK. The 500 # Gorilla is now revealed!!

There is NO chemical you can completely safely use for this application. Sorry them is just the plain cold facts.

Why you will obviously ask? Because you WILL be consuming whatever you put onto these plants. You have no oportunity to wash them like green leafys, or peel them like tomatoes, you are stuck with them the way they come off the vine. If you dirtied them up somehow then you just messed up a good thing.

NOW the traps. I have 3. They filled up about 5 bags each over a month long bug season that has now ended. I have more hops than one could ever expect out of 1st year plants. My tomatoes are insane. I am up to 119 quart jars and am not done yet from around 50 plants. My peas have driven my entire family to threaten me if I don’t cut back next year. Did I see beetles in my garden pretty much at all times - yup. Did they do any signnificant damage - nope (see above brags). I figure that the sexual/floral bait draws them to such a degree they just can’t sit still very long before going to get them “some”. I get that there is much ado on both side as to wether these traps work at all. I know how thick they where on my garden plants before I set them out this year and how quickly that number was reduced to a resonable level. All may not have this experience and as I state they are nowhere near a perfect solution.

but

when faced with a choice between making my home produced beer into something that knowingly contains pesticides and letting the beetles have a tad, I choose to not spray.

To each there own but seriosly consider what you are putting on what is an uncleanable food product.

Barry

“Because you WILL be consuming whatever you put onto these plants. You have no oportunity to wash them like green leafys, or peel them like tomatoes, you are stuck with them the way they come off the vine.”

This is the reason you shouldn’t use insecticides on plants like hops. Seven is fine on vegies you wash thoroughly but should not be used on anything that will be consumed without washing first. It shouldn’t stain plastic siding as far as I know. It has never caused any problems on my house.

Growing up we never used malathion on anything we were going to eat. It worked great on the hog barn walls for flies but we only used it as a last resort there too.

The electric swatter things kill an amazing number of bugs but keep in mind that sizzle-snap-pop we find so satisfying is the insect boiling and exploding. Don’t hang them with 6-8 feet of anything you don’t want covered in liquified bug juice.

I’ve always heard the traps are a great thing to convince your neighbors to use. They will attract all your bugs to their houses. 8^) I haven’t tried them myself though.

Good luck finding a good control mechanism. It can be very difficult to come up with the right mix.

Paul

Another important point for this conversation you just mentioned. If you have a very small yard you really can’t use the traps. they are supposed to be 50 to 75 feet downwind (prevailing) form the plants you want to protect. For many folks this would actually nave them in the next door neibors yard, not a god way to make friends. I have enough room to place the traps at the correct distance in a grassy sunny part of my yard. You are tring to trick a zillion bugs so you have to use your noodle on placement.

Just went back and read my post. God Greif I kant spel werth krap!

[quote=“Vulkin’”]Pesticides DO NOT WORK for Jap Beetles!!!

All you will be doing is wasting your time and money. There really is only one answer to this pest. There are traps you can buy and set out. they have a floral and sexual attractant. you set them up about 50 feet downwind of your plant(s) to protect. The trap pest control brisbane[/url] is just a hourglass shapped bag atteched to a X shaped thing you hang the bag on. the bugs try to land on the x shaped plastic thing, it is slippery so they fall into the bag never to come out again. I chang ethe bags about once a week because the smell of dead bugs turns off the bugs and you want them turned on not off. You can also build one out of a 5 gal bucket. drill a hole in the top. fit a PVC piece into the hole and secure (glue or fitting). Go buy the attractant and stick it a few inches down the inside of the pipe. put a few inches of water in the bucket, put on the top and place as menitoned above. I have a 1/4 acre garden and three traps along the eastern border (30-50 feet away) does the job. I add all the corpses (thousands) to the compost pile after I make sure they are dead (I pull the full bags, put them in a [url=http://www.pestcontrolling.com.au/pest-control-gold-coast/]pest control gold coast

sealed bucket with some water in it and set it out in the sun for a few days).

I hate these bugs!

Barry[/quote]
You have mentioned very useful method to control these bugs but do you have any answers for bed bugs. They are now turned into my nightmares and need effective prompt solution.