Thankfully I don't experience the #'s of JB's where I am, although I googled for a photo, and they do look familiar. I came across several sites that said putting out the baited traps seems to attract more beetles to you then to merit the number trapped and killed. And the extra beetles do more devastation to gardens on their journey to the traps. One site indicated that to remove the bugs by hand would reduce the number of new visitors by half (only 1/2?) compared to leaving all the beetles on the plant. Too bad the grub killers harms the earthworms, that method sounds pretty good. Just a question, are all the white grubs under lawn the grubs of the japanese beetle or do some belong to something else? One year I needed to clear a fairly new sodded area for a bed (we didn't plan that well) and I could practically peel the sod back like a rug, and I would judge that there had to be 8-10 white grubs just in a square foot area alone. I had no idea what they would grow into, so I gathered and flushed down the toilet (seemed to gross to squish). Although as kids one year we had our own 'fear factor' and had picked a baby's washtub full of tent caterpillars off of our ash tree and dared each other to 'walk' in the bucket (to make caterpillar wine?) and we did. Oh to be a kid again. ~k~

I have used traps, sprays, covers and so on to control these pesky insects in Wisconsin.... we have severe infestations of them.... they defoliated my cherry tree in one day! Needless to say, since then I rely mostly on netting to prevent the contact with them. Other than that, I have also tried another method, though it is not fun. If you manage to collect enough beetles from your traps, and have an old blender, Grind those suckers up with lots of water, strain the emulsion, and use a pump sprayer with a spreader sticker added to the water. They do not like the smell of dead japanese beetles, and tend to stay away from the plants sprayed with this.... it has to be applied often if you have lots of rain ( a downfall, depending on the size of your vines) but given the relatively dry summer we have had at least, the re-application has only had to be once a week or so. Some long term solutions include adding milky spore to your lawn, this takes a while for the fungus to build up in the soil, but it kills the grubs before emerging as beetles, so I have had success with this. In all honesty, a combination of all of these will do the most good, as well has hand picking in the morning while they are inactive. I hope that this helps you out!

Until more experienced growers post you might want to do what we do. We do not have it bad as you but the first thing you can do is to pick as many of the tree as possible and drown them in some soapy water. Unlike other insects they are easy to grab for us and take care of them. I believe the spray we use will kill them but I would not spray the trees if the peaches are near harvesting. Side note we keep our trees at 10 to 12 feet tall so we can cover them with frost blanket/netting and pick the fruit without a ladder. - Dave

The blue container line by Bayer works well. Check the ingredient list for imidacloprid. The also have a spray, but I prefer the tree and shrub drench - it is less messy and it last for up to a year. HOWEVER, WARNING - I have not tried it on my basjoo. It only gets a few nibbles occasionally. But I do use it on my hibiscus, crape myrtle and red maple. The old climbing rose and raspberries I leave for the beetles. After several years of using the drench, I find that the beetle population in my yard has dropped greatly. Of course, that could have something to do with the droughts we've had as well.