Anne,
Don’t use the pheromones bag because you will have all the JBs from your neighborhood come to your house. I made that mistake 6 years ago. I emptied at least 10 bread bags. Like Scott said, milky spores probably work best.
Tony
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I used grubex on my lawn and orchard this spring. The moles are gone and I hope it killed the jb grubs too. I won’t know for a couple more weeks yet. They hit me around the middle of July and August.
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@Johnnysapples How serious was your mole/JB problem before you put the Grubex on?
I put down Milky Spore last year but, I guess if your neighbors don’t, it may not make a dif.
I also have a very serious mole problem.
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They have been here in moderate numbers in S. Indiana. First seen on my cherry trees, then straight to my grape vines, which got it the worst. After 4 weeks of them, I’ll be glad to see them gone!
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Tony, i will say that for the most part the attractant worked for me. But here is the kicker, you have to apply a grub killer that fall, then the coming spring. Most people don’t. What they get is a lot of dead JB, but also a ton of grubs in their yard.
When the wife and i moved in our house the first summer it was horrible. Every tree had some and they would swarm. Next year started off the exact same (2012). They attacked every fruit tree i had. I read every review that talked about how horrible the bait was because it brought JB from everywhere to your yard. It always ended the same with you’ll have more JB next season because of this. Not once did they talk about grub control. I figured if I was going to attract them, might as well kill their offspring. I decided to place the bait always upwind of my yard so the first place they hit was the bait. I emptied 3-4 bags a day per station (4). After the season i layed down Sevin granules in the fall. The next spring i followed up with another round (2013). Digging in my yard now i don’t come across many grubs at all now, even though i haven’t done any control since then. Also my JB problem is almost nonexistent. Do i have some? Yes. AreAre they terrible? No. I probably kill 15-20 a day on the worst days. Some days a may only see 10 total. But i will tell you 2011-2012 was crazy. I never knew how bad these things were until then. But since then… they don’t do much damage if any.
But YMMV.
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I have the best situation now - a neighbor is putting up the traps on her property, she’ll get her own JBs and mine, too
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I unfortunately need to revise my sunny report above. I wasn’t looking up high enough and they are in the highest shoots on my plums. I saw 30-40 probably, with this level its nothing but there could be more on their way.
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I’ve had them really bad some years, and not too bad others. They seem to ebb and flow at whatever pace they choose here, one year heavy, one year not as bad. I’ve wondered about trying to control grubs too, but my problem is the field to the East of my cherries & peaches is in row crops, as is the rest of the ground that’s not timber. Last year the JB’s were also out there on the Soybeans pretty bad. Thus year it’s in corn and they’re not seemingly all over the corn as bad, but while mowing yesterday near the edge of the corn I did notice some JB clusters on several marestail weeds.
I think if I was trying to control them in town I would for sure spread out some grub killer in my yard, but I don’t really think it’d be that cost effective for my situation here.
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They love the top of the tree
I wait til August to do summer postharvest pruning on the stone fruit, cause I’m going to cut back those branches anywayhow
Ugh! The Japanese beetles showed up! They are still small and lets just say the ones I found won’t be getting any bigger.
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The moles were terrible. They just about covered the whole ground with tunnels in the lower part of my yard and orchard. The beetles were a moderate problem too. I’m not seeing any new tunnels and the old ones are flattened down now from the lawn mower. I’ve used it before without as good of results on the moles, but I probably did’t put it down thick enough. This was the first year I seen them sell it in a bag about the size of a forty pound salt bag. That’s what I bought. It was forty bucks I think. The beetles I haven’t seen yet. I’m sure I will though. It will be interesting to see how bad though.
I found that if you feed them all your fruit tree leaves they go away for about a year!
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Johnnysapples,
Let’s hope they don’t all come to the buffet!
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We’ve had them for at least four weeks now. I hit them early and hard with liquid Sevin on all my fruit and nut trees, grapes, muscadines, asparagus ferns, etc. I waited until the bees were finished with the asparagus ferns before using Sevin there, but I fear the bees paid for their evil cousins around my trees. Lots of clover in the orchard. Shaking them into soapy water…uh huh. With the many thousands I see on trees twenty feet tall that isn’t exactly practical. I seem to be seeing a rain effect this year. We had them early and then they faded away until we got a 1" rain event. Then they were out in force for a week or so. It was hot and dry for at least two weeks after that and they seemed to fade away again. This past weekend we got more than 7" of rain, and I started seeing them again by late yesterday morning. I spent the Fourth spraying eight gallons of Sevin on all the stuff they like that I also like. Hopefully today they are getting terrible stomach aches, but as soon as I get home I’ll be checking to see where they are now. They did significant damage to my pecans, especially one Peruque that was hit particularly hard for some reason. It is right between a Pawnee and a Colby, but those trees have much less damage. Hitting the tops of those trees with my pump up sprayer requires maxing out the pressure.
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Yikes… I’ll have to do a walk through, but i haven’t noticed any in the yard the past few days. I think in total i’ve found 2.
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I found two leaves that looked like that on my cherry tree, but none elsewhere yet. I hope they don’t hit me hard. My season starts about now. I’m going to put more grubex under my trees.
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My Nikita’s gift persimmon is getting hit pretty hard. It’s bigger than my other two that I have covered with tulle to protect. Do others have Japanese beetle issues with their persimmons? What do you do to protect them? I thought the persimmons were supposed to be pest free.
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Japanese beetles, aphids, and white flies all put up a sign designating my persimmons as an official banquet hall. 
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I am now seeing small numbers of beetles on lots of things, but no swarms. Its the swarms that do you in, they can skeletonize a whole tree or vine. I hope it doesn’t get any worse.
Of course if one thing is going OK something else has to screw up… my new sprinkler timer decided to fail over the weekend and the deer munched several new grafts to stubs.
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