Avaunt and japanese beetles

Can anyone put a brand name to this. One that will knock out gnats, ants, PC, and others?

I use to trap my Japanese Beetles on Knotweeds which JBs like so much better. Shake them into a pail of water morning noon evening. This was 50 years ago and the plant might have been touchmenot.

I still use Imidan. labeled for fruit trees. Works good against curculio and adult jap beetles. Seems to last about 12-14 days. When I spray in late July/August on my apple trees and grapes, I see little jap beetle damage on the new growth until 10-12 days later.

Buying in 5 pound lots is not cheap but it stores well. Have used it for up to 8 years from storage and it still worked just fine.

Peaches and grapes seem to be what my jap beetles prefer. And Honeycrisp apple! Anyone who grows lots of different apples seem to notice that the adult jap beetles seem to prefer Honeycrisp over other varieties? Not sure why but I see this every year.

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Plums. Cherries and plums. They’ll defoliate them down to the veins.

The rain this week brought them out with a vengeance. They’re in the prairie and as usual the roses, but I can’t spray them there because of bees.

I have used imidan in the past but I ran out and decided not to buy more because a bag is more than a 5 year supply for me. I went with avaunt instead. Might buy some sevin though.

Worked for me. One application kept the population very low for about 10 years. Time of application is important. Read package.

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Milky Spore is what you want, but it only kills beetles as others have mentioned.

Is there no ground treatment for PC?

I disagree. Removing the population can’t be a bad thing. You put them on the perimeter of your property to keep them from moving onto your property.

20# of milky spore costs about $45. The label says it will cover 7000 square feet per application and 6 applications are required for control. My yard is 1.5 acres or 65,340 square feet. I would need about 9 bags per application and about 56 total for control according to the label. This would cost me about $2,520
I am NOT doing that.

Milky spore would not help me deal with the beetles eating my fruit trees now.

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I agree that removing the population would be a good thing, but if you are attracting the population of the surrounding area to your property, a portion of them will end up putting their babies in your yard instead of ending up in the bags. You can do what you want to do, but after reading this report I decided against using the bags and have begun periodically making rounds to dunk as many as possible into a soapy water bottle. I only have 1/8th acre so putting bags on the “outside” of the property is just my yard.

I say this with zero sarcasm, if you DO elect to use the bags, please report back with future results (good or bad). I wish you luck.

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The principle of the milky Spore as I understand it, is that the bacteria functions as a communicable disease and spreads throughout the population in the soil, killing all of the beatles. It may not take as much as the bag says. I’m not an expert though.

I have used them. It’s the only affordable thing that works. Your fruit trees are going to attract them. They have their favs and they will come for them. They move in waves around the country. They came through here two years ago. Now I just have the small lingering population.

They love my persimmon, rhubarb, and willow tree. I know where to hunt :wink:

I have a buffet for them to choose from. They usually hit the cherries and plums the hardest here.

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I’ve heard that many times but for me It’s a myth. I’ve used the traps successfully. Perhaps it depends on where they are and how many in the local environment.

I caught thousands and thousands of J. beetles using the pheromone traps and bags. Year after year after year…I caught them and took great joy throwing the tied up bags into roaring fires. I could never “get ahead” of them…until I stopped using the bags and lures. Miraculously when I stopped using them the infestation eased up…year after year after year.

Coincidence? Maybe. I rather doubt it. But hey, if you feel like they’re working maybe they are. They did not for me.

edited to add…during those years of using the bags/lures I also was spraying Sevin on the hardest hit plants/trees. Paper birch, sycamore, apples, and roses were especially hard hit. I imagine I killed many more thousands (and beneficials) with those shots of Sevin. Stopped using the bag/traps…stopped having to spray Sevin on a 2-3 times a week basis.

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I’ve never had to deal with thousands. Maybe that’s why the traps worked well for me. The populations have been low enough (a few hundred) that the 3 traps I use and local predators catch most of them. Also my soil bacteria and my neighbors heavy use of grub killer has kept population under control.

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I see Avaunt is labeled for Japanese Beetles on grapes with a 7 day PHI so it looks like it will kill them

Don’t see JB label on Apples

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