Insect inhabitation

Ran on Sauturday, August 18, 2007

Insect inhabitation
Pests eat more than 300 kinds of plants

By Keighla Schmidt
Leader-Telegram staff

It may seem like an oxymoron, but an insect that has invaded the Chippewa Valley is described as a "beautiful pest" by Tom Kalb, the UW Extension horticulture agent in Eau Caire County.

Beauty aside, Japanese beetles are cataclysmic to many plants.

"They're not choosy; they will eat over 300 kinds of plants," Kalb said.

Some of their favorites are also human favorites, such as rose bushes, crabtrees and linden trees.

What Kalb described as a "perfect storm" for the beetles has led to their inhabitation in the Chippewa Valley this summer. The unseasonably warm winters, and dry, hot summers have fostered the flowering population. Dry conditions, lack of disease-introducing rain and stressed plants from last year's similar situation have made it easy for the bronze and metallic green crawler to invade.

Having a big appetite, the bugs eat everything off a plant except the fibrous veins, Kalb said, leaving it bare and with obvious destruction.

"When you fight Mother Nature, she usually wins," Kalb said.

Ironically, the lawns and areas most manicured and best kept have the highest risk of being infested.

Thriving on wet conditions, the bugs will live and reproduce in the lawns being watered daily in the dry heat.

Golf courses are high-risk areas because they're landscaped and watered daily.

Galen Sabelko, groundskeeper at Princeton Valley Golf and Grill in Eau Claire, said the bugs have made homes on his greens.

"They like to go on the most manicured grass," he said.

Earlier in the season, the adult beetles mated and laid eggs on the fairways, tees, greens and birch trees around the course. At that time, Sabelko said he sprayed the trees with insecticides to rid the greens of the pests' larvae.

A few years ago the course left the bugs alone and nature took its course; the bugs were prey to crows.

"If you don't treat them," he said, "the crows will tear at the ground they're in."

Schmidt can be reached at 830-9203, 800-236-7077 or keighla.schmidt@ecpc.com.