CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - This summer's drought is bad enough for Illinois farmers, but now beetles, rootworms and mites are bugging them, too.

The hot, dry weather is turning this growing season into a feast for insects and other pests, said Kevin Steffey, professor of agricultural entomology and executive editor of the University of Illinois' Pest Management & Crop Development Bulletin.

The pests are chomping into corn, soybeans and farmers' bottom lines.

"It's well past average," he said. "Corn rootworms are wicked. Spider mites come along in droughty conditions ... Japanese beetles are terrible."

Rootworms, which are a beetle larvae, chew up the roots of corn plants, weakening stalks. Adult rootworm beetles and Japanese beetles feed on corn silk, preventing it from catching the pollen necessary to produce kernels on each ear. Japanese beetles also devour soybean leaves, and spider mites and soybean aphids suck the moisture and nutrients from soybean plants.

None of the pests are new.

Rootworms and Japanese beetles were around last year, but the damage they cause becomes more apparent when corn and soybeans are already weakened by a lack of moisture amid dry conditions, Steffey said.

The drought has sparked water-use bans and restrictions across the state, where about 8 inches of rain fell from March through June, just over half the roughly 15-inch spring average

"If we were having a drought and none of these insect problems, it would be bad enough," Steffey said.

Steffey also said farmers already face a smaller harvest because drought stifles the development of their crops. Pests can further reduce yield unless a farmer sprays to control them - which costs money.

"It makes everything that much worse," said Ron Frieders, who raises corn and soybeans on about 1,800 acres in northern Illinois. "You've got smaller plants. You've got more expense and the potential for substantially less yield."

Japanese beetles eat the tender part of leaves, leaving only a lace-like carcass behind. Their numbers are huge, especially in southern Illinois where more than 7,000 were caught in a single trap one day, said Ron Hines, a research specialist at the university's Dixon Springs Agricultural Center.

Two-spotted spider mites have not been a big problem in Illinois since the last major drought in 1988, when farmers sprayed more than 4 million acres to control them, Steffey said.

The microscopic mites - adults are only about half a millimeter long - normally live in grasses along roadsides, but when that vegetation dries up they jump onto green soybean plants.

"In years when their numbers are exploding and you don't do anything, you have no crop," Steffey said.