Thought I would update my report on Japanese Beetle traps, as some remarks were made about info out there that I have not found to hold true in my garden.

"The traps attract more beetles than they trap." If that were true, there would be more of them around my garden now than before I hung the traps and that is not the case. We have trapped at least 2 gallons of the things so far, the first gallon within 48 hours of hanging the traps. I bought two more traps and they are catching beetles at a much reduced rate than the first two did.

"When the beetles in the traps die and begin to stink, the traps stop attracting beetles." We hung a trap near the rose bushes and cannas which were absolutely covered on Sun July 20th. Then we flew to Calif, returning Sat the 26th. That trap was still attracting beetles and was so full that the beetles going into it were close enough to the top to crawl/fly back out. The bags that catch the beetles are hourglass shaped with a narrow neck above a catch bag that holds @ 2 qts. Above the neck the funnel part of the bag was also full with close to another qt. So that one's not true either.

"The traps attract beetles from an area much larger than your garden." Probably, and in suburbia that might be a problem for people who don't want to bear the expense for trapping for the whole neighborhood. But we live in the country and I am happy enough to pull them in from the five-acre field on my own property next to my garden. They like to lay their eggs in turf and that's a lot of turf. Next year, I plan to hang traps away from my garden and hope the traps are more attractive than my peach trees and rose bushes.

In short, I am still delighted that I learned about the traps. We don't like to spray, but are ok with using biological traps. Like Dawn I am skeptical of much of the "research" out there, asking myself who stands to benefit from a negative report. The chemical companies, maybe? Dorothy