so far i caught two of them. but last one, i can't find where it went. i'll see this round hole on top of my soil, and if i dig deep enough, i'll see dark shiny armor of the beatle. i took two of them out of two different pot and killed them. but last one, i have no idea where it went.

do they damage the root? any idea? i heard adult will eat leaves on some trees, but i haven't seen them this year, and they have not been near my fig trees.

pete

They are burrowing to lay eggs.  The grubs that hatch from those eggs - the big creamy white bastards with orange heads - they like to eat root material.

dang it. i guess good thing is i was going to bare root them and put them in my soil mix next spring. and the pot where i couldn't find the adult beatle was the first unknown israeli red to root. bastards.

pete

There is a harmless soil additive you can use to kill them

you mean milky spore thing?

pete

Japanese beatles love digging into pots because they like the loose soil in fig pots. I have treated my soil years ago with milky spore and got rid of them, but as another measure, all my potted figs were treated to avoid having a beetle end up in California. There's a big fine for shipping pots with Japanese beetle larvae to the west coast. Each beetle can lay up to 50 eggs.

Last year I was given a few plants that turned out most of them had somethign that looked like grubs in the soil and all the plants that had these grub looking things in the soil died shortly after. Wonder if it was those darn japanese beetle larvae?

i'm ordering milky spore today. don't want my trees dying on me.

pete

Ok guess I answered my own question just googled japanese beetle larvae and thats exactly what was in the pots.

just ordered milky spore.

typically, i move trees to my soil mix (pine bark/compost/perlite/peat moss 2.5/2.5/1/1) once the tree is about foot tall and have good root system. so far, i haven't seen beetles on those soils. but i have seen beetles on potting soil/perlite 1/1 mix.

by spring, all my rooted cuttings will be moved to my soil mix. but i'll treat all the trees just to be safe. hope they don't start munching on the root before then.

pete

Even if they do, it won't kill the trees, just might set them back a bit.  I suspect it would take a massive infestation in order to kill the tree.