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Alternative to spraying for Japanese beetle management

It’s Japanese beetle season and that means damage to crops. But the University of Missouri is moving forward with its research on insecticide impregnated nets as an alternative to broad spectrum insecticides.

MU entomologist Kevin Rice says a graduate student is conducting tests where the nets are set up on the outside borders of field crops, “Then we hang the Japanese beetle lures on them. So these are very attractive to Japanese beetles but they don’t attract other insects. And when the Japanese beetle lands on those nets it picks up a toxic dose within three seconds and will die.

Rice says they are working with an ag economist, “He’s going to look at the actual price comparisons of insecticidal sprays compared to the netting.”

Rice says they’ll have results on the efficacy and the cost of the Japanese beetle nets by the end of this summer.