 Chris Chick recommends going out in the morning and swatting the beetles into a bucket of soapy water to save your plants. Chris Chick explains how nature usually rids them by releasing green leaf volatiles into the air once the beetle chews on a plant, a scent meant to attract enemies. The problem? Minnesota has none. So even though the plants are releasing these green volatiles and pleading that some predator of Japanese beetle come kill it, nobody gets the message because they're an invasive exotic.