A fruitful victory
The announcement this week by the Mesa County Division of Pest Management that victory has been declared in the fight against the Japanese beetle was welcome. Earlier in this decade, when the beetles were first discovered in the Palisade area, there were fears they could cause immense damage to fruit crops.
So a small army of pest fighters mobilized, using money from the Upper Grand Valley Pest Control District and the involvement of both the county and the Palisade Insectary. They set traps throughout much of the valley to determine where the beetles were. And they began spraying lawns where the beetles had been discovered.
This year, for the first time in six years, no beetles were captured in any of the traps set. It was a hard-fought, but important, victory for this region’s valuable fruit crops.