By DoMyOwn staff
Learn how grubs can be prevented and controlled before they wreak havok on your lawn.
Grub activity can cause a lot of damage and unsightly brown patches in your lawn.
My name's Kyle and today we're gonna talk about grubs... how to prevent them and how to treat for them in your lawn.
Grubs are the larvae of beetles that live beneath the soil. They're usually found in a C shape but not always. They also usually have a white to an off-white body with a very brown head.
So what does a grub's life cycle look like? Grubs awaken from winter in the spring and start to feed on your grass roots. Then those pupae turn into beetles later in the summer. Then those beetles lay eggs into your soil and the life cycle continues unless you do something to stop that life cycle.
So how you do prevent a grub problem from happening? First off, and very important, is properly mowing, watering, and fertilizing it so that you have a really healthy lawn.
Second off, you can use an insecticide such as imidacloprid in May or early Spring that's a systemic insecticide that's gonna get down in those roots where grubs are feeding.
This will help prevent and kill those grubs in the Spring and help you with problems later down the road.
Another great product for grub prevention is a product called Milky Spore, but this product is only good for the Japanese Beetle White Grubs only. You need to do at least 3 treatments of this product per year, and do it for at least 2 years in a row. But, if done properly the treatment can have at least 15-20 years of control on those grubs.
So how do you identify if you have a grub issue in your lawn? Those grubs tend to eat on the roots of your grass, so the first thing to start to look for is thinning of you grass. Some places may start to turn yellow or you may even have some brown spots, or even dead patches in your lawn.
Second of all, you will start to see a lot of animals, such as racoons, moles, or even birds digging your lawn trying to eat those grubs.
And also if it's really bad, you may even see patches of grass that become soggy that you can peel up like carpet.
So how do you check your soil for grubs? Since those eggs are going to be hatching in the Fall, August through September is a great time to check your lawn for those grubs because they're gonna be near the top of the soil and easy to find. What you wanna do is cut out a 1 foot square section of your lawn and peel that lawn section back, and look for grub activity in the soil and also in the thatch.
Now if you find more than 5 grubs in that square foot section of lawn, then you're gonna need to treat for them right away. Once you peel that back, you wanna make sure you put that grass back in and water it back in so that grass doesn't dry out.
But what if you're already seeing grub activity in your lawn? You're going to need to do a curative treatment. Timing of this application is very important. After you've done your first initial preventative treatment, in Early May in the Spring, you can do a second round of this application, usually in July or early August for the second feeding of those grubs.
Take note of your thatch layer when you're doing this application. If you have a thick layer of thatch, usually more than a half inch, you're gonna need to remove that thatch layer from your grass before you do the application. Thick layers of thatch will prevent the insecticide from getting into the soil where it needs to be to work. Those thick layers of thatch also encourage insect activity. You can either use a liquid or a granular when doing this treatment. But with both of these products you wanna make sure you use enough water to get the insecticide down in the ground for it to work.
Another great way to control grub activity in your lawn is treating for adult beetles. These adult beetles lay the eggs into your lawn and if you can treat for them before they lay the eggs, then you will greatly reduce the amount of grubs that you have in your lawn. You can treat these with a couple of different products, usually a Bifenthrin or Imidacloprid product work well when spraying them on the bushes and plants where they normally eat.
As always, you can call or email our Customer Service staff to find out how or what to apply. Make sure you subscribe to our channel and if you liked this video, give us a thumbs up and check out these other great videos that we have.
We are wishing you year long success with your lawn.
