Home Remedy for Japanese Beetles

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Carl Campanella noticed a dead Japanese beetle on one of his geraniums. Upon closer inspection, he found the body of the beetle to be hollow. That led him to research whether or not geraniums could be used to control the recent outbreak of Japanese beetles.

The answer is yes, geraniums are toxic to beetles when combined with sunlight. Campanella found an article from April 1929 entitled 'Sun Helps Geraniums Poison Japanese Beetles.'

The article cites Charles H. Ballou of the Bureau of Entemology as saying that ingesting geraniums can cause paralysis or death in Japanese beetles. Ballou found that the beetles that fed on geraniums in the sun were more likely to become paralyzed and die than those that fed on geraniums in the shade.

Within 24 hours after feeding, the geranium poisoning destroys the entire digestive system of the beetle. Campanella found just such a hollowed-out beetle on one of his geraniums.

Ballou also noted that the flowers of the geranium are more poinonous than the leaves.

At the time the article was written, geranoil, an oil that occurs in geraniums and some other plants, had been used to attract beetles to a specific tree where they could be killed by poison.

Placing geraniums in sunny areas of your garden can be an eco-friendly way to protect your plants from Japanese beetles.