Protecting Your Lawn From Grub Damage

If you are finding that every year you lose sections of your lawn to grubs eating at the grass roots, there is a product called “milky spore disease” that you should be aware of. Unlike other chemical insecticides that may harm much more than their targeted organisms, milky spore disease only targets grubs, and particularly the grubs of Japanese beetles. It should be noted here that most lawns have grubs scattered about in the root zone, and most of the time this small population of grubs does not cause any problem.

If you have a section of lawn that appears dead or to be dying, there is a simple procedure to find out if the cause is a grub infestation. Take a knife and cut an L-shaped pattern (approximately 18 inches per leg) in the affected area. Gently peel back the sod from the apex of the incision. If you find more than just a couple of grubs then you’re pretty safe in assuming that the damage to that part of your lawn is being caused by grubs. Also, if this particular area of your lawn is being harmed by grubs, you will notice when you peel back the sod that it peels back much easier than anticipated. The reason for this is that the grubs are chewing on the roots of your turf, thus making it very easy to peel pack the sod.

If you have determined that you do, in fact, have a grub problem then I highly recommend that you consider milky spore disease as a safe, effective, and very long-term means of grub control. Milky spore disease is a dry powder consisting of bacterial microbes that will only harm grubs. When applied to your lawn as directed by the label’s instructions, milky spore disease will get consumed by the grubs under your turf and they will die. After they have died, the milky spore disease microbes inside the dead grubs will continue consuming the grubs. At each point in your soil where a grub has died there will be a concentrated population of milky spore disease. These concentrated pockets can last 15 or more years. And the next time a new grub is feeding in the vicinity of one of these concentrated pockets, it too will die and become another pocket of milky spore disease.

It should also be noted that milky spore disease has not been shown to be harmful to earthworms, birds or any other organisms besides the white grubs. And due to the nature of milky spore disease - and how it works - once it has been applied to your lawn it becomes unnecessary to reapply more milky spore disease every year. If you are interested in finding more information on “milky spore disease”, you will find plenty available on the internet via your favorite search engine.

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