The UDAF Insect and Pest Program officially kicked off their Japanese Beetle eradication efforts yesterday in residential areas of Farmington, UT! Japanese Beetles (JB) were first detected in the U.S. in 1916 by a New Jersey Agricultural Inspector. It is believed that they arrived via Japanese irises imported from Japan. The pest’s destructive impact quickly became apparent as plants began to suffer from its feeding. Despite early containment efforts, JB spread rapidly throughout the Northeast, South, and Midwest, and now infests nearly every state east of the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, JB has been detected but never established, thanks to swift response measures by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF). JB was detected for the first time in Orem, Utah in 2006, which prompted an aggressive eradication effort by UDAF that successfully eliminated the pest within a few years. JB poses a serious threat to over 300 plant species, including cherries, apples, corn, turf, an...