7-8-11 Japanese Beetles

So I was appalled by the beetles on Grandpa Steiner’s neighbor’s tree Thursday evening.

Little knowing what was going on in my very own cherished orchard.

Until I took a walk and saw the brown…

Lots of it.

Can’t quite see much of interest?

Look closer.

More brown.

Those were our two old Lodi trees. Sad sad sad.

But THIS ONE  - - -

‘bout breaks my orchard-lovin’ heart.

Want a closer look?

On a cheerier note, my red or yellow (can’t remember which) delicious tree is doing ok because Dad and Jacob have been spraying it.

And peaches are doing ok because they too are being sprayed.

Organic they are NOT, but we have little choice. Without spraying we have no fruit, and soon will have no trees. The worst tree is in my guess 25-30% decimated. A few years of that and our orchard will be DONE.

Which is why I’m launching my Japanese Beetle Trap advertisement.

Hogwash to the debate of whether the trap bait increases or decreases the population on our property, whether it draws more in than we started with. I really don’t care whose beetles I’m trapping and killing. I just want them ALL DEAD. Uhlman’s beetles? Yordy’s beetles?  Bring ‘em on. They all need to die. The kids chuckle at me - - - because what difference can four beetle traps make to billions of bugs? Well, here’s what:

Dead beetles do not reproduce.

And whether it saves our fruit trees or not, every dead beetle is a dead potential parent beetle, right? And thousands of dead beetles multiplied by thousands of beetle traps WOULD make a difference. Logic says so.

So buy your Japanese Beetle Trap today. They’re on sale for $17.99 at your Morton Farm & Fleet, regularly $22.99 (I think). Buy them as gifts for your friends and neighbors so they can attract and kill the ones on your property while you attract and kill the ones that are on THEIR property (see the stupidity of the argument!?).

And I do believe they work, based on our personal experience with them. When Jacob set up the second, third, and fourth traps on the levee, north of the orchard, and on the horse fence, the front and back yard both were filled beetles swarming to the traps. And Jacob said he got covered in beetles as a cloud of them left the Jonathan tree (most damaged, see above) to swarm to the trap. That’s what it’s supposed to do - - - draw them away from the fruit trees into the trap of death.

So  - - - - -

please do the world a favor and start destroying Japanese beetles by the thousands!!!!