Why Should I Avoid Treatment For Grubs At Certain Times Of Year
As the year winds to a halt, grubs become dormant with no damage caused to your lawns from November through January. However, as winter winds to a halt grubs emerge after thaw and begin to cause moderate damage.
This is still not the ideal time for treating grubs.
Such feeding later ceases between April through July with no visible damage to your lawn.
Although no damage is seen, this period is considered an acceptable treatment period because adult beetles lay eggs at this time.
How To Treat For Grubs In Central Texas Naturally
In short, the temporary solution is not to have your lawns treated with chemicals. Your best long-term strategy is to change the landscape by adding diversity to where you have grass around your house. Add some native plants as well and provide some relief from the monoculture. Grubs naturally feed on certain plants, so if you have more of those around your house, they might not go for the grass.
That isnt to say that all grub control is bad or even evil. If we want a healthy lawn and dont already have native plants in our yard, then as a temporary fix or just for aesthetics you can have your lawn tipped to kill off most of the grubs.
Its best for this to be done before , but sometimes if needed it can be done mid-summer. This is because grubs tend to feed more in the fall and winter, then pupate underground over the winter and emerge as beetles in the spring/summer. Anyway, its important to not let your lawn get too far gone before trying to treat it for grubsthe larvae come out of the ground easier if there is no grass to mow and keep down.
One natural solution is to use the naturally occurring nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, which are microscopic in size and invades grubs. The worms release bacteria that kill them, but it may take up to three years for them to be completely effective in ridding your yard of grubs.
How Bad Are Grubs For The Lawn
Grubs, which are the larval, or immature, stage of several species of beetles and chafers, can damage a lawn by feeding on the roots of your grass. Healthier grass can tolerate more grub feeding, and all grass can tolerate some grub feeding.
A grub infestation will cause patches of thinning turf, and these patches will gradually increase in size. Often times grub damaged grass will pull out very easily at the roots.
What we often hear from homeowners is that they believe they have grubs because animals like moles, skunks, crows and racoons are digging in the lawn. This isnt a reliable clue, however, because grub infestations arent always accompanied by animal damage and animal damage doesnt always result from a grub infestation. These animals feed on other insects in the lawn, like earthworms, which are beneficial to the health of the lawn. That all said, if you do have grubs and animals are digging for them in the lawn, that can be detrimental to the health of your turf and to the appearance of your yard.
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Reseed The Dead Patches
The main goal of your lawn care efforts should be to bring life into a yard. Sometimes this means starting over from scratch following a grub infestation. In cases like this, reseeding is the best treatment to add to your lawn care services once damage has occurred. It’s a simple process.
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What Chemical Products Can I Use To Control Grubs In My Lawn
If you have a severe grub infestation and want to use a chemical product to control grubs, you have a number of widely available options.
From about late April into early June, you can effectively use a product with the active ingredient chlorantraniliprole to control all species of white grubs we have in New Hampshire. This chemical also controls caterpillars such as webworms and armyworms. This product is most effective when the grub is actively feeding so applying it 2 to 3 months in advance of severe grub feeding from June to August is recommended. This ingredient is in two widely available products: GrubEx® and Roundup® For Lawns Bug Destroyer. The U.S. EPA designates this chemical as a low risk pesticide due to its low toxicity to bees and other beneficial insects.
Some products registered for controlling grubs just have a pyrethroid, such as products with the active ingredient Gamma-Cyhalothrin, commonly found in the Spectracide® Triazicide® Insect Killer For Lawns. According to research from Michigan State University, products that only contain lambda-cyhalothrin, gamma-cyhalothrin, bifenthrin, deltamethrin, cyfluthrin or permethrin do not work for grub control.
In most cases, whether its early spring or fall, its preferable to simply wait until the next appropriate window for using a preventative product that gets better results and is more targeted. Learn more about current insecticide approaches for white grubs from UMass Extension.
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When Should You Treat Your Lawn For Grubs
If you spot the pests, do not start panicking.
A healthy lawn should support a few grubs per square foot without notable damage.
They actually help with aeration and loosening the soil both are good for the grass.
To know when you treat your lawn, use the following guidelines:
- 5 or fewer per square foot: No treatment needed.
- 6 to 9 grubs per square foot: If they are not causing visible damage and arent inviting unwanted wildlife, no treatment required.
- 10 grubs or more per square foot: Start considering treatment.
Master gardeners apply it in to control the grubs year-round.
Beneficial Organisms May Suffer
Insecticides are known to be effective in grub control.
However, theres a downside to using this method. While grubs get killed, other beneficial organisms arent left out. These too are decimated in the process.
Plus, the use of insecticides is known to be harmful to the environment.
With the damage caused by insecticides, can this method be discarded? Not at all! There are safer ways to apply insecticides for grub control with minimal damage to beneficial organisms.
Doing this successfully also boils down to timing.
This has little impact on other beneficial organisms in the soil. Thus, the damage is contained and your lawn is kept free of grubs.
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Should You Call A Professional
If you already use a lawn service to keep your yard neat and healthy, they will likely spot your grub problem and suggest treatments. If not, you can call a lawn service to treat the lawn. But grub eradication is a doable DIY project. Pros are probably going to use the same methods you would if you treated the lawn yourself, so the only advantage of hiring a pro is to save yourself the hassle.
Do You Need Grub Control Every Year
If you found grubs in your lawn last spring or fall, you may need to apply a grub preventer. You do not have to apply grub control annually unless you see grub damage. If you have been treating your lawn with a preventer and killer for successive years, it may be time to stop until you notice any signs of grub damage return.
In healthy turfs, grubs may not be a significant problem. However, you should apply grub control treatment when you see signs of damage. Otherwise, your turf can suffer significantly.
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Controlling Grubs In The Lawn
Beetles, like Japanese and chafer beetles, emerge in early summer, feed on plants in the garden, and lay their eggs in the soil in the lawn. Later in the summer, the grubs hatch and immediately begin to feed. They will continue to eat and grow until mid-fall, when they move deeper in the soil so they can survive through the winter. When the soil warms up again in the spring, the large, mature grubs move back into the upper soil levels, where they transform into adult beetles that emerge in early summer and start the whole process over again.
The key to controlling grubs is to kill them before they hatch and begin to cause damage to your lawn. In spring or early summer, apply a preventative grub control product, such as Scotts® GrubEx®1 to your lawn, following label directions. This is especially important if youve had problems with grubs in the past. One application of Scotts® GrubEx®1 can kill and prevent grubs for up to 4 months.
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Should I Apply Grubex Before Rain
A very important tip is to water the grub control in within a few days. You can wait for a good rain heading your way, and apply the grub control before the rain. The chemical in some grub controls will break down in hot, dry weather. So if you leave the chemical on your lawn and not watered in, it wont be effective.
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Grubex And Jonathan Green Grub & Insect Control
Grubex and Jonathan Green Grub & Insect Control use a targeted pesticide to kill grubs while they are young and before they can cause damage to your turf. They kill grubs for up to 4 months, but when used as directed it does not present a hazard to humans or domestic animals. The maximum number of Grubex applications is one per year. Jonathan Green Grub & Insect Control can be applied up to 3 times per year.
Apply your grub control to a dry lawn with a rotary spreader. Make sure to follow the spreader settings provided on the products packaging. After applying, you may lightly water the treated areas to activate the control and soak it into the soil where the grubs live. To prevent runoff, make sure to sweep any granules that landed on any hard surfaces back into the lawn.
These season-long systemic controls work when the grass root absorb the control agent and then the grubs eat the grass root and die. For this process to work, the control must be in the plant when the grub feeds, so the best time to apply is late May/early June, so the plant has the time to absorb the control before the grub eats it. Apply too soon, and all the power is gone before the grubs start feeding.
Spring Time Isnt Ideal For Grub Control
When springtime sets in, a lot of homeowners make the mistake of thinking that grubs can be controlled effectively.
However, findings have shown that such assumptions are false. In spring, grubs are almost clocking a year of their lifecycle.
What does that mean? It means that these pests are ready to metamorphose into beetles.
Attacking them at this stage wont be a good idea. Their reasons are simple when insecticides are used on grubs at this stage, other beneficial organisms in the soil are affected or killed off.
Plus, grubs cause limited damage at this stage of their development.
When they eventually become beetles, they fly off in search of favorable territory. A favorable territory will be one with attractive plants such as crepe myrtle, roses, and ornamental cherries among several others.
Areas with such attractive plants that serve as food create ideal conditions for breeding. In other words, the reproductive cycle starts again with a new generation of grubs being unleashed. What time is ideal then?
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Can I Use Detergent To Kill Lawn Grubs
Yes, you can! Detergent has the advantage of being cheap and readily accessible.
Laundry detergent can kill grubs if you apply it all over your lawn.
A side benefit of using detergent is that it also adds phosphorous to the grass.
Steps
- Make sure your lawn is recently cut and short. This will allow the sprayed liquid to reach the ground and not sit on the grass.
- Get a sprayer with a long handle close to the ground like the one below. This will allow you to reach the ground.
- A mixture of lemon juice and detergent also works as a beetle repellant.
- Use 3 ounces lemon juice and 6 ounces liquid detergent
- Add a gallon of water
- Spray it in areas where grubs are known.
Tips For Killing Grubs In Your Lawn In Central & Southern Md
Lawn grubs are not only gross, they are also sneaky.Why? Theres no way you can really tell when they attack your lawn because they do their dirty work underground where you cant see them. In fact, your lawn can look just fine on the surface, but grubs are eating away at the lawn roots. And this cuts off the pathway of vital water or nutrients your lawn needs. Pretty mean, right? Since grubs can devastate your lawn in Central and Southern MD, lets get to know these nasty pests and also review a few tips for killing grubs.
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How To Get Rid Of Grubs In Lawn
Lawn grubs are common garden pests that live in your soil, eat grass roots, and eventually turn your yard brown. They often attract other unwelcome animals that come to feed on them as they dig up grass patches in the process. The key to combating lawn grubs is in prevention and early detection. Read on to learn more about grubs and grub control in order to avoid the massive lawn damage they inflict.
Lawn Grub Treatment Applications
Lawn grub treatment must enter the soil. An application requires watering immediately afterward in order for the chemicals to penetrate into the ground.
Before applying grub treatments to the grass, remember you will also destroy some other insects in the soil, including varieties of grubs which do not damage plant roots.
For this reason, if you already enjoy a healthy green lawn, you may wish to use caution in initiating an aggressive grub treatment program.
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Brown Patches That Roll Up Like Carpet
Grubs feed in the soil underneath lawns, compromising the grass roots. So, damaged areas of turf are easy to lift up from the ground. If you spot a brown area, see if you can roll that section of grass up like a carpet. If you can pull up grass and you see no roots, grubs were probably the culprit.
Brown patches may be irregularly shaped and even appear when your lawn is well-irrigated.
When Is It Too Early To Apply Grub Control
Having identified the ideal timing for grub control, its necessary to also understand when its not right to act on grubs. Attacking grubs in early spring will be a bad idea.
The reasons are simple
Having applied your pesticides at this time, it gets absorbed into the soil and disintegrates.
This results in a loss of potency. As such when grubs hatch between July through August, nothing is stopping them as they move on freely to feed or damage your lawns.
Its important to target the period when insecticides are still in high concentration around the root zone of lawn grass with. This should correspond with the hatching time for grub eggs.
Only then will you achieve the desired results.
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Natural Ways To Get Rid Of Lawn Grubs
You can pursue two organic options for getting rid of lawn grubs before turning to chemicals. These are safer for the environment and wont harm beneficial insects, but they will take longer to be effective. In some cases, it may take years for the natural treatments to fully eradicate a lawn grub colony.
Scuffed Lawn From Animal Damage
Skunks, raccoons, moles and birds will tear up your lawn to reach the grubs underneath. Ravaged areas of your lawn are a definite sign that somethings going on underneath the grass.
However, keep in mind that animals also dig for worms and other insects, so perform that roll-up check we described can reveal the culprit.
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Whats The Best Time To Apply Grub Control
The best time to apply grub control depends on whether youre preventing them or killing the ones already damaging your lawn. It is usually best to put down grub preventers in June and July just when the grubs are about to hatch. This will provide the best preventative control of grubs for the next season.
If you want to stop grub damage immediately, the best time to apply grub killer insecticide in your lawn is as soon as you see signs of damage. This is usually any time between early spring to early August when the grub worms are most active eating and damaging grass in your lawn.
How To Apply Grub Control
Having identified the most active months for grubs, its time to hit them hard with effective strategies to keep them at bay.
First, youll need to wait for visible signs. However, we all know that grubs are root feeders and wont be easily seen as they are below the ground surface.
Youll have to wait for signs of their feeding activity. This is usually seen when your lawn grass begins to look drought-stressed or brown patches begin to emerge.
To further confirm grub presence, you may have to tug at certain sections of your lawn grass.
If there are signs of slight movement, lifting or pulling the grass out will reveal grubs. Youll always find these destroyers lying in a C shape and looking innocent. You may want to also introduce a natural predator onto your lawn.
Common grub predators include birds and other small animals who will have a field day fishing out grubs from their hiding/feeding spots. Combating this problem can be achieved using a variety of ways.
Some of the common methods include the use of detergent solutions or Dawn dish wash soap among other natural techniques. If youre not specific about the strategy used in getting rid of grubs, consider using insecticides.
These are applied to the lawn following the use instructions which accompany the insecticide.
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