How to Get Rid of Sod Web Worms From Grass
Sod webworms can infest turfgrasses and cause damage ranging from chewed-up blades of grass to brown patches throughout the lawn. Once a group of sod webworms has infested your turf, they will lay eggs and spread their destruction around your yard. To get rid of them, you have a few options for treating your lawn with various chemicals. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Get Rid of Sod Webworms in Grass
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Flush them out and diagnose the situation. Mix a tablespoon of lemon-scented dish soap into a gallon of water, and pour this over the grass in the area immediately surrounding a brown patch. The worms will be irritated by the soapy water and leave their burrows and flee to the surface, where you will be able to determine how many they are and what life stage they are in (larvae, caterpillar, moth). This will also help you determine how large your infestation is.
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Treat with insecticides. Webworms are susceptible to most lawn-care insecticides that you can purchase at a local garden supply store. Spray the insecticide on your lawn late in the evening, because these worms are nocturnal. This will keep the chemicals "fresh" when the worms emerge from their burrows, and will kill them effectively.
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Try a bacterial treatment. Purchase a bacterium such as bacillus thuringiensis. According to a University of Rhode Island report, the worms will ingest this bacteria and it will poison their guts and kill them. This method is a little bit slower than a chemical-insecticide treatment, but it will slow down the worms' eating habits before killing them, so it will start protecting your lawn before the bugs are dead.
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Purchase nematodes. Steinernema carsocapsae nematodes are very effective at controlling worm populations because they kill the host worms they infect and then reproduce in the worm carcass and seek out future hosts to infest and kill. Purchase them in a garden store, then sprinkle them on your lawn in the evening. Water immediately afterward for best results.
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