Have had pretty good luck protecting desirable plants from these beetles with a nicotine based spray. It gets absorbed into the plant and when they eat it, the nicotine kills them.

Occurs to me a guy could supersize that into a trap of sorts.........find a sacrificial tree in an isolated location, spray it, then leave one of those scent plugs from the bag a bug traps on the tree. Draws them in from all over and the tree kills them. Might even be able to do that industrial scale with something like a fence row of multiflora rose, which they seem to love.

The question then becomes.......what happens to a foot deep layer of deado's under the tree? Will those harm birds that eat them? Most animals are not affected by the nicotine like the insects are. As long as the trap tree is not blooming and drawing bees, it might work. As I understand it, there are three versions of these niconoids.........and some of them can even be poured on the tree or roots and it disperses throughout the entire plant. So trap tree could be a huge pin oak somewhere off in the distance. Or several of them.

Anyone tried it?

60 miligrams of nicotine is enough to kill an adult human being.

Keith

In that case, it would probably need some study as to how much nicotine is in a dead beetle, and can birds, fish or animals eat enough of those to be harmed. Coons have been known to graze on the dead ones on the ground. They always walk away. If it gets them, they die somewhere else.

Sounds like a DDT event waiting to happen.......

The "nicotine" I'm using is acemitoprid. A mild neonicotinoid. If effective for about 10 days or so.

We could use a few less eagles.

DDT fact and fantacy

False rap from tree huger.

Interesting

Cover plants you don't want hit by the Beatles with wedding veil..

milky spores, kills the young