Martha's Japanese Beetle Problem

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven...
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up..."
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3

Martha and I grew up together in Maryland. We both fondly remember our brother tying threads around the necks of Japanese beetles in the 1950s, letting them fly around him in circles on their leashes. Now living in Michigan, Martha writes the lamentation below on her current (not so fond) experiences with Japanese Beetles. Looks like it's time to kill.

"I thought the JBs had disappeared after that, and chalked it up to DDT. Now, however, I realize that I was just out of the East Coast gardening loop for decades. Maybe they didn't go anywhere except off my radar screen -- and, at 1/4 mile per year, westward. A research proposal from 2005 noted, 'The Japanese beetle has now spread across most of eastern North America from Maine and Georgia west to Minnesota and Louisiana. Isolated infestations have now been found in many states west of the Mississippi River, including Colorado.' So, they're headed your way.

They reached Michigan in large numbers some ten years ago, and my roses in particular 3-4 years ago. I've tried traps, which caught thousands without appreciably thinning the numbers on my roses. I've tried Milky Spore on my lawn for the past two years, to no avail. (That could be for two reasons: I learned Thursday that the commercial products may not contain the actual effective milky spore, according to DNA testing; and my non-irrigated turf is likely not the home for their grubs anyway. My next-door neighbor, whose retirement has become full-time lawn care, has likely created the perfect conditions for them to thrive.) I've flicked them onto the patio or driveway and stomped them (satisfying but not effective on a grand scale). I've squirted them with Rose-RX and Safer Soap solution. They are still winning. My only success has come from planting double knockout roses that are resistant (and not all are!)

Now I am into biological warfare. One corner of Connecticut, scientists discovered many years ago, had a protozoan pathogen (Ovavesicula popilliae) keeping the beetles under control. It both kills close to 60% of the grubs (once established) and causes infected females to produce only half as many eggs. David Smitley of Michigan State University Extension (your tax dollars at work!) has been introducing them to public golf courses here and studying them since at least 1999. (An early layman's report notes that pathogens worked but parasites did not. Smitley has also done a lot of research on natural controls for the emerald ash borer -- too late for Michigan's ash trees, but maybe in time to save the baseball bat as we know it.) He held a Biocontrol Field Day about 15 miles from my home last week, to hand out dead and live beetles collected from his 'infected' sites. The dead ones are planted in the ground, so that grubs can be infected. Since my dry yard is not a great site for that (and my neighbor might shoot me if he saw me digging holes in his fairway), I got a Ziplock of a dozen or so live ones to release in my yard.

I am not the only one who came early so as not to miss out. Half of the 300 bags had been distributed before the official start time, and huge numbers of cars were still arriving when I left. Obviously, SE Michigan is ready to engage the enemy. The Judas beetles have now been spread much farther than they could have flown in a year. Optimally, it will take five years for heavy infection with the protozoan to become established and ten years for significant reduction in plant feeding damage. Perhaps I should start watering my lawn, to encourage egg-laying and the survival of the infected grubs. I'll have to lay off trapping and spraying for a few years, but it wasn't working anyway. I guess I could continue to flick and stomp, if I bury the remains. ;-)

I am attaching a photo of the buggers ravaging my roses ten minutes ago [expletive deleted]."

Vexation of Spirit, or Go Ask Alice, I think She’ll Know

“I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit…
And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; I perceived that this also is vexation of sprit.
For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
- Holy, Efin, Bible, Ecclesiastes

One of the major buzz kills of knowing everything is that your students frequently are sorry to have to learn from you. By definition, a know-it-all knows everything. Your wisdom causes our grief. The world is composed mostly of fools and madmen who know nothing. And here I am, as Jerry Rafferty said, stuck in the middle with Vexation of Spirit.

I’m in a big close family, with dozens and dozens of immediate and extended families. I’ve known a few “outlaws” in my time, and come to love them. But I’ve never actually been one. Just now, I’m out-gunned by my spouse’s kin here, three to one. Now, I’m the outlaw, an angry bird is staring down at me, claiming the ripening stalk between us. If I cook dinner, Vexation of Spirit has to make an alternative dinner in case she throws up mine.

Just to be safe like G’dma W when we were kids, not trying to make any fuss, and of course managing to make more of a fuss thereby. Wait, what? THAT’s where I’ve felt like this before. Then, I was 10, sharing a bedroom w/sister M1 and G’dma W. One of the first words my mother taught me was “hypochondriac” because I could see one in action so perfectly at the dinner table. As we nestled in our snug beds on Christmas Eve, G’dma would say good night, then, “I hope I live until morning. Please Jesus, just this one more Xmas… I know I won’t be here by next Xmas, and blah, blah…” I learned young the lesson of passive aggression, masquerading as compassion, living so far up the butt of denial that we couldn’t duck the radiation of it’s blast at ground zero. I’d forgotten. “Poor G’dma!” we’d lament in chorus every night when we three went to bed at 8 pm in the pre-adolescent December dark. I hold my neck in muscular sympathetic pain now, for the pain I knew we’d all feel in those moments before we all went off to our own sweet dreams.

I am now about the age G’dma was back on Dallas Avenue. And I’m caught in a time warp of memories from my very happy childhood. So what triggered this post-traumatic stress train wreck of remembrances? Yesterday, my worst dreams were realized. I was the recipient of deep dark family secrets of abuse, betrayal, the ways we hurt the ones we love. It was a strange juxtaposition: loss of trust relayed in untrustworthy ways. I found myself doing the family’s actual dirty laundry as Vexation of Sprit aired the family’s metaphorical dirty laundry. A good example of how increasing knowledge increases sorrow.

No wonder I’m looking outside for a place to hide, even if it’s over 90 and more humid than we expect in July. Muggy days, muggy memories, here at family dysfunction junction. For all my whining, neither MIL nor Tech Support Guy subject me to this crap. Time to cool down by watering the plants now in afternoon shade. The perfect kind of mild sedative I need this week. Blue Cat will guard the gate while I work undisturbed.