Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyebabe
My goodness! You have certainly worked hard at eliminating these pests!
Japanese beetles have a grub stage as well and the lawn must be treated every year to keep these under control in my area.
One thought: Are your neighbors treating their yards?
If your neighbors are close like mine, everyone has to treat or they just hatch out in the "safe yard" and fly up to chew out everyone's plants  |
There are rental homes on two sides and neither one has much vegetation to speak of. The other neighbor only has a few large palms and a swimming pool. It's a certainty that none of them treat their yards, but it probably wouldn't make much difference if they did because weevils are very difficult to destroy. It's kind of a crap shoot with pesticides because most of them don't work and weevils don't appeal to the taste of predators such as birds, frogs, and lizards.
My adhesive spray treatment definitely stops/kills the adult weevils. According to a study, the adult stage lasts about 8 days, so I'll need to do frequent checks and treatments to offset gravid females before they lay eggs. Another method of killing the adults is to shake the affected limbs over an umbrella turned upside down. The umbrella captures them and then you can squish them. This doesn't sound like a promising solution because the nasty things can fly off when they sense a threat.
As grubs emerge to the adult weevil stage they climb up the trunks of their host plant. They can be captured at this stage with reversed wide sticky tape wrapped around the trunk.
Hopefully, with diligent checks and treatments, I can curb next season's hatchlings by killing off the adults before they lay eggs. Some of the victims were already mating and some were smaller versions of the adults.
Hybrid Mode
