Resistance of Flowering Crabapple Cultivars to Defoliation by the Japanese Beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

Flowering crabapples, Malus spp., are important small landscape trees in much of the United States and southern Canada. We evaluated 42 cultivars of Malus spp. for resistance to defoliation by Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica Newman, for 2 growing seasons and found marked and consistent variation in resistance. Defoliation caused by beetles ranged from 100 to