In fact, choosing resistant fruit and vegetable varieties is my favorite low-work method of insect control in our own garden. Resistant varieties Japanese beetles prefer French hybrid grapes over American grapes. Japanese beetles taught me my first lesson about variety selection. We had a terrible problem with these invasive beetles on our grapevines until I realized that French hybrid varieties are much more tasty to Japanese beetles than are American varieties. The latter can be distinguished by their thicker leaves, which are often whitened underneath, and by the relative paucity of beetles chowing down on the leaves. In addition to grapes, Japanese beetles also defoliated our young sweet-cherry tree, but damage on other plants seemed to stay at low enough levels that the trees could shrug it off. After switching our small vineyard over to American grapes and removing our cherry tree, the Japanese beetle pressure was reduced to the point where hand-picking was sufficient to keep beetles at bay.
