All of us like to have a beautiful green lawn. Many different types of grasses such as Bermuda, Fescue, St. Augustine, Bent Grass, Zoysia and more are used to create turf areas in many United States landscapes. A common pest that resides and lives under the grass is the grub. Grubs are the larval stage of many types of beetles such as the Japanese Beetle, the June Beetle, the May Beetle, the Black Turfgrass Beetle and the Asiatic Garden Beetle. Grubs can be living in the soil from six inches to a few feet underground. Grubs are ugly creatures with an off white, tan or brown head, curled in a “C” position, has lots of legs, a segmented body that is white and varies in size.
Sometimes you will see the grubs when you are digging into the soil to put in new plants. They will stay underneath the top level of the soil most of the time. It is hard to tell by looking at a lawn that there are grubs. They feed on the grass roots and if the grub population is large enough then your grass will turn brown and die. Some grass types grow quickly and may not be affected too much if the grub population is not too large.
Small animals will be attracted to your lawn if there are many grubs for them to feed on. These animals will be digging into your lawn to reach the grubs in order to eat them. So they may get rid of your grubs, but you can have more damage to your lawn because of the digging animals. The best thing is to try and keep the grub population down to a minimum.
The natural enemy of grubs is wasps. Many wasp varieties dig into the ground and they will feed on the grubs. So be careful which insects you want to kill as they may help you in ridding your lawn of a more turf damaging creature. Find out which insects are beneficial to you. Many wasp varieties can help you by feeding on not only the grubs but also spiders, web worms and more.
There are products on the market that you can apply easily to control the grub population in your lawn. There is no special time of the year to treat your lawn but if your area receives lots of rainy periods then you will have to treat it more frequently. Usually a lawn only takes about one to two treatments per year with chemicals such as cyfluthrin. This product will come in granule form and can be applied by using a garden spreader. More rainy areas apply it about four times a year. Always clean your spreader well after any chemical use. Merit granules are another product that you can use and not have to apply it as often as the other type of granules. You can purchase these products in most feed stores or nurseries around the country. With any chemical treatment you will need to read, understand and follow all instructions on the package. More is not better. To get any returning larvae you will have to continue the chemical treatment for at least two years.
