Julianna and Andy Hrasky got a nasty surprise when they returned home last month: Thousands of Japanese beetles were eating their way through their western Iowa vineyard.

"One day was fine, and the next, they had taken over," said Julianna Hrasky, whose family left their vineyard — Prairie Crossing Vineyard and Winery near Council Bluffs — for a couple days.

"We weren’t expecting them to come that fast and furious," she said. "The quantity was extreme."

The pests are invading the state in numbers few Iowans have experienced before.

"This is the highest populations I've ever seen," said Mike White, an Iowa State University Extension viticulture specialist. "Boy, there's lots of them."

Read the full article on the Des Moines Register website.