I have several types of grape vines newly planted this year. One of them...the Thompson seedless is being ravaged by some kind of beetle. It could be a japanese beetle, but I haven't gotten a good look yet. Does anyone know of something I can use to get rid of these pests that isn't chemical? Need help Quick! My leaves look like swiss cheese!!!
Yet another older post, so my answer is dedicated to the next person who encounters this. Cromba, Your assesment of Japan beetles is very likely correct. Additions of milky spoor will (in time) treat these beetles and is an organic solution. The deal is it is slow to populate the environment. The good news: Japan beetles are slow, they can easily be knocked off into a jar of soapy water. The good news redux: no matter how ragged your grape looks now they will recover. The bad news: I dn't know of a silver bullet to kill off all of these vermin, like yesterday...
Japanese beetle solution I did in fact find a way to get rid of the little buggers. If you do not have a huge infestation, taking an eye dropper and a bottle of mineral oil out to the grapes, I put a drop of the oil on each bug. Kills them instantly. If you have swarms of them this obviously isn't practical. Doesn't hurt the plants and most of it will be on the bug anyway. I find I can get rid of a few hundred bugs in a fairly short period of time. And that is less that will lay eggs for next year. For huge swarms, it is still pretty much impossible, but as you said, the plants recover well. If you do the oil thing every day...maybe even twice a day, the population goes down significantly over a few days. And if you are lucky enough to have a distant neighbor who uses the traps, they will all go over there instead!
