Ada County, Idaho readying for Japanese Beetle treatment

Mar 27, 2015

2015 will be the third year of the eradication program

Residents of Idaho, especially those in northeastern Boise between Third Street and Quarry View Park, people who live south of Elm Grove Park and around West State Street may be receiving letters from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

The letters will be asking the recipients for their “Consent to Treat”.

The treatment revolves around trying to eradicate the Japanese Beetle with treatments set to begin around the middle of May – the third year of this program.

Treatments for the beetle will be ground applications of an insecticide on lawns where the pest has been spotted. It targets the young larvae that live in the soil and feed on grass roots. Nothing will be applied to vegetables gardens, flower beds, bushes or trees.

There may also be yellow and green plastic traps that are non-toxic. The numbers of beetles found has risen in the past few years.

In 2012, 56 beetles were caught. In 2013 that number jumped significantly to 3,058. Last year, due to the eradication program, the number of beetles dropped to 1,238.

Symptoms that plants may have been damaged by the Japanese Beetle include skeletonized leaves and dead plants. Larvae and grubs which live under the soil can do even more damage because they’ll feed on roots, putting lawns, parks and other places in danger.

Join the conversation and tell us if you’ve had any experiences with the Japanese Beetle. If so, what kind of measures did you take to defeat the pest?

Would you give the consent if asked? Why or why not?

Japanese Beetle
Idaho State Department of Agriculture

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.