ID beetles eating my muscadine leaves
April 27, 2016 9:04 PM   Subscribe

Beetles are eating my muscadine leaves. The large beetles are about the size of a thumbnail. The small beetles are the size of two grains of rice. I seem to only see them at night. Can you ID these beetles? How do I get rid of them?
posted by gregr to Home & Garden (6 answers total)
 
(No idea what the bugs are.)

As a rule of thumb, plants can lose up to a third of their foliage before yield drops. If the beetles aren't doing much damage, consider ignoring them vs. trying to get rid of them.
posted by momus_window at 9:19 PM on April 27, 2016


Looks like possibly Japanese Beetles, and Grape Flea Beetles.
posted by yesster at 9:26 PM on April 27, 2016


In the case of the Japanese beetles, remove them by hand and toss them into a bucket of soapy water.

In the case of Grape Flea beetles, keep the region of the plants clear of decaying plant matter.
posted by yesster at 9:28 PM on April 27, 2016


Response by poster: I don't think that the beetles are Japanese or Grape Flea. The large ones are brown and furry, the small ones are brown. So they don't really look like the Japanese or Grape Flea beetles.
posted by gregr at 9:41 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


The large one looks like it could be a type of May Beetle. (We know them around here as June Bugs.) No idea on the smaller beetle, though.
posted by KoPi_42 at 10:03 PM on April 27, 2016


The answer's coming from inside the house! I am now pretty sure it's a hairy May beetle, Phyllophaga crenulata. We were thrown off by the Junebug suggestions because we didn't know it was a catchall, thinking it referred only to the iridescent green guys.

So we're going to try some different Junebug control tactics. Yesterday we started with the hand-picking and dropping into soapy water; if you have a different suggestion, let's hear it!
posted by hollyholly at 6:41 AM on April 28, 2016


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