Grass Spray to Eliminate Grubs
Grubs can damage a lawn by eating the grass roots. Lawns that are moist when the air conditions are dry are more attractive to the beetles and chafers that look for moist lawns rather than dry lawns for laying their eggs. To prevent grub damage, you must eliminate the grubs as soon as the grub larvae hatch. Does this Spark an idea?
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Grubs
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Grubs in the lawn are the result of beetles and chafers laying eggs in the soil during June or July. Grub larva hatches in about seven days. After that, the grubs burrow down in the lawn about 2 to 3 inches, to feed on the grass roots. The C-shaped worms continue to feed on the roots of the grass until fall when the soil temperature drops. At that time, the grubs burrow down deeper in the ground for the winter. Treating grubs during or after August 1 will only give you a small window of opportunity to kill the grubs.
Spray or Granular Pesticides
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Spray and granular pesticides work differently for killing grubs in the lawn. If you use a spray, it will soak into the ground right away and may sink deep enough to reach the root zone where the grubs are feeding. Granular pesticides are applied with a lawn spreader and then watered with a garden hose. If you have a lot of thatch in the lawn, the pesticide doesn’t have a good chance for reaching the grubs. Rake the lawn to remove the thatch whether you use granular or spray pesticide.
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Grub Sprays
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A long lasting pesticide with diazinon is just one chemical treatment you can use for eliminating grubs, but it does take at least three weeks before the pesticide kills the grubs. You need to apply the spray in early September so that the grubs are affected before burrowing down deeper in the ground. A short term pesticide that can be used on grubs is trichlorfon. Grubs are killed quickly with an application of trichlorfon.
Biological Controls
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Besides sprays and granular pesticides that require you to add harsh chemicals to the lawn, there are biological controls for grub infestations in the lawn. Milky spore is a bacterium that sinks down into the soil where the grubs feed. After the grubs ingest the spores, they die and more spores are released. Heterorhabditis nematodes are parasitic worms that kill grubs but not other organisms.
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