Treat for Grubs to Prevent Beetles

Have you ever been in your yard in the middle of summer as beetles are flying out of the ground? You hear the buzzing and notice them flying and darting just above the grass line. Unfortunately, we get calls from people when they notice the beetles, but the time to prevent them is right now by treating the grubs that emerge as beetles!

Beetles are the product of grubs that feed on your grassroots underground and are a common NC lawn pest. This is when they are in their larvae stage and this is the time that you need to treat them so that they never make it to the beetle stage. Once they emerge from the ground as beetles, they will spend the next few months feeding off of your landscape and tree leaves.

All grubs have a year-long life cycle and about 10 months of the year, they spend their life underground before emerging as a beetle. Grubs will feed on grassroots until they emerge in early to mid-summer. You will notice damage to the turf by brown patches that are easily peeled back, like a carpet, from the soil. You may also notice birds, skunks, moles, and other wildlife feedings in your yard.

It is normal to have one to five grubs per square foot of turf. However, if the weather has been dry and warm, you may see damage if there are fifteen or more grubs per square foot. If the weather is cool and moist, it may take up to twenty grubs per square foot before you see the damage.

One misconception is that if you have moles, you have grubs. Many times we find that moles are feeding on earthworms and while doing a grub treatment will help in the overall scheme of things, it is not going to get rid of your mole problem.

Many people use the ‘bag-a-bug’ approach to attract and trap the beetles. However, this is not a good approach because this actually attracts beetles to the surrounding area as well. NC State University stated in a report about white grubs, “Recent studies indicate that traps for Japanese beetle adults have no real impact on the subsequent population of grubs in the soil. The use of Japanese beetle traps can also attract the foliage-feeding adults into areas where they may feed on ornamental landscape plants.” Needless to say, the best approach is to apply a preventative to your lawn now and then a curative lawn pest treatment in the fall at the time of seeding. This application will also prevent the infestation of fall armyworms which has become an increasing problem in the Triad.