Is it too late to treat your lawn for grubs? What are the best times to apply Grubex and other control measures?
Let’s find out.
Grubs are synonymous with lawn damage and require adequate and far-reaching control strategies to check their activities. Part of the several considerations to make includes knowing when to apply grub control.
This is as important as the actual process of getting rid of grubs.
Grub control involves several things. First, you’ll need to identify the grub problem from physical signs. Identifying an ongoing infestation normally calls for immediate action. However, timing is very crucial to grub control.
Certain times of year are the best times for treating grub infestation.
It’s in light of this information that we’ll be discussing when to treat for grubs. Moving ahead with treatment without knowing regard to timing will only serve to defeat the process. In other words, little or no results are ever achieved.
As you read on, you’ll just when to begin the treatment process.
When To Treat For Grubs
Grubs are among the top contenders for the most destructive lawn pests. The best way to deal with them is to get rid of them as early as possible.
To do this successfully, you’ll need to know the right time to start or begin your assault.
Development Impacts Timing
Here, there’s a right time as well as the wrong time.
Before we proceed further, it’s important to note that these pests are beetle larva still in the process of development.
The more they’re left to spread, the more destructive they become.
Grubs are immature beetles that hatched from eggs laid on lawns. As soon as the egg hatches, these beetle larvae begin their feeding activity. Your lawn comes under immediate attack as these burrow beneath the surface and begins to feed on the roots of such grass.
As grubs feed, they grow steadily and eventually mature into beetles which then fly off and later return to lay their own eggs in favorable spots such as lawns. This action kick-starts the process all over again. Within the timeline of being hatched to when they fully mature, a lot happens.
You may treat a grub infestation only to find out there’s a fresh breakout of new arrivals. This situation arises from error due to timing. You don’t need to repeat this mistake and we’ll show you how in a short moment.
When Do Grubs Inflict The Most Damage?
To know when to apply the treatment, it’s necessary to find out the time of year when grubs do the most damage to your lawns. This is easy to pinpoint. The months of August through October see the most grub activity on your lawn.
These are evident by patches of drying grass as well as critter presence who are attracted to grubs and prey on them. Outside of these periods, (August through October) grubs don’t carry out substantial damage.
The Answer
When you notice grub infestation in the fall, it’s best to treat it during fall. This helps to significantly minimize damage to your lawns.
However, not sticking to proper timing (such as treating for grubs in spring) won’t achieve any results. You’ll have to repeat such treatment in spring.
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Spring Time Isn’t Ideal for Grub Control
When springtime sets in, a lot of homeowners make the mistake of thinking that grubs can be controlled effectively.
However, findings have shown that such assumptions are false. In spring, grubs are almost clocking a year of their lifecycle.
What does that mean? It means that these pests are ready to metamorphose into beetles.
Attacking them at this stage won’t be a good idea. Their reasons are simple; when insecticides are used on grubs at this stage, other beneficial organisms in the soil are affected or killed off.
Plus, grubs cause limited damage at this stage of their development.
When they eventually become beetles, they fly off in search of favorable territory. A favorable territory will be one with attractive plants such as crepe myrtle, roses, and ornamental cherries among several others.
Areas with such attractive plants that serve as food create ideal conditions for breeding. In other words, the reproductive cycle starts again with a new generation of grubs being unleashed. What time is ideal then?
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The Best Time to Apply Grub Control Measures
Young grubs cause the most havoc to lawns as they aggressively feed on grassroots. The months usually having the highest record of grub activity (destruction of lawns through feeding) are late July, August, and September.
All your attention and focus should be on these months. You’ll need to implement whatever control plans you had within this time to arrest the problem as early as possible.
Looking for when to apply to Grubex? Midsummer months are the most effective.
The Right Time for Grub Treatment Coincides with Periods Having the Most Damage
When grubs infest your lawn or hatch, they don’t immediately cause severe damage.
As their larvae go through different stages of development, they eventually reach the stage where their damage is most visible. This is the peak of their feeding activity and spans from August to October as earlier pointed out.
Now, the ideal treatment period coincides with such damage, starting a bit earlier from April through October. These range from the acceptable treatment period to the ideal treatment period.
April and May are acceptable periods for treatment while June through September is ideal periods.
We earlier made mention of October as an also being acceptable treatment period. Any other time of the year outside of these should be ruled out for grub treatment.
How to Apply Grub Control
Having identified the most active months for grubs, it’s time to hit them hard with effective strategies to keep them at bay.
First, you’ll need to wait for visible signs. However, we all know that grubs are root feeders and won’t be easily seen as they are below the ground surface.
You’ll have to wait for signs of their feeding activity. This is usually seen when your lawn grass begins to look drought-stressed or brown patches begin to emerge.
To further confirm grub presence, you may have to tug at certain sections of your lawn grass.
If there are signs of slight movement, lifting or pulling the grass out will reveal grubs. You’ll always find these destroyers lying in a “C” shape and looking innocent. You may want to also introduce a natural predator onto your lawn.
Common grub predators include birds and other small animals who will have a field day fishing out grubs from their hiding/feeding spots. Combating this problem can be achieved using a variety of ways.
Some of the common methods include the use of detergent solutions or Dawn dish wash soap among other natural techniques. If you’re not specific about the strategy used in getting rid of grubs, consider using insecticides.
These are applied to the lawn following the use instructions which accompany the insecticide.
Treating For Grubs
Having identified the right time to engage, it’s equally important to know how to proceed.
Knowing how to proceed includes identifying the most effective strategies or methods. These can either be used individually or combined. It’s all up to you and what you think serves your situation best.
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Nematodes
When you notice changes to your lawn which is indicative of grub activity, you’ll need to probe further to be certain.
Doing this will involve digging up parts of your lawn to observe the soil. When more than 5 grubs are found per square foot, treatment will need to commence immediately.
Part of this treatment includes the use of beneficial organisms such as nematodes. Nematodes are tiny (microscopic) worms considered environmentally friendly and effective grub predators.
When applied to your lawn, they immediately begin the treatment process by feeding on grubs.
This isn’t as effective when applied at any other time outside of the fall season. You get the most results in falls and grubs are stopped right on their tracks from causing further havoc.
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Applying Effective Grub Killers Yourself
There are lots of over-the-counter remedies developed for grub infestation. These are in the form of insecticides and repellents.
Some of the most effective products include Scotts GrubEX Season Long Grub Killer, St. Gabriel Milky Spore Grub Control Mix, and BioAdvanced 24 Hour Grub Killer Plus.
Other effective grub insecticides include Bayer Dylox 6.2 White Grub Insecticide, Bayer Season Long Grub Control Plus Turf Revitalizer, Roundup bug Destroyer, and Bonide BND60360 Insect & Grub Killer.
These are only a few of several remedies you can use for your grub problem.
Each comes with specific instructions for use which you must abide by.
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Calling the Experts
Sometimes trying to figure out how to get rid of grub problems yourself can be tiring.
If this represents your situation, consider calling in the experts. These are professional pest control services that carry out comprehensive treatment.
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Beneficial Organisms May Suffer
Insecticides are known to be effective in grub control.
However, there’s a downside to using this method. While grubs get killed, other beneficial organisms aren’t left out. These too are decimated in the process.
Plus, the use of insecticides is known to be harmful to the environment.
With the damage caused by insecticides, can this method be discarded? Not at all! There are safer ways to apply insecticides for grub control with minimal damage to beneficial organisms.
Doing this successfully also boils down to timing.
June is the best time to systematically apply pesticides for grub control. Selective insecticides are used and absorbed by grass plants. When young grubs come feeding, they munch on the grassroots as usual and get poisoned in the process.
This has little impact on other beneficial organisms in the soil. Thus, the damage is contained and your lawn is kept free of grubs.
When Is It Too Early to Apply Grub Control?
Having identified the ideal timing for grub control, it’s necessary to also understand when it’s not right (too early) to act on grubs. Attacking grubs in early spring will be a bad idea.
The reasons are simple;
Having applied your pesticides at this time, it gets absorbed into the soil and disintegrates.
This results in a loss of potency. As such when grubs hatch between July through August, nothing is stopping them as they move on freely to feed or damage your lawns.
It’s important to target the period when insecticides are still in high concentration around the root zone of lawn grass with. This should correspond with the hatching time for grub eggs.
Only then will you achieve the desired results.
Timing Births Efficiency
Knowing when to apply grub control is known to significantly increase efficiency in treatment. When done right, about 80% to 90% of grub infestations in the following season are contained.
These are huge numbers that guarantee a lawn free of grubs.
Is It Right to Apply Grub Control Yearly?
Part of the many questions that arise includes the frequency of applying grub control.
It’s best to apply grub control only when the resulting damage is visible. Grub presence is never mistaken as patches of your lawn will naturally turn brown. Only when signs are seen should you proceed with treatment.
As discussed to this point, we’ve seen that timing is everything when it comes to grub control. Application is mainly determined by WHEN such treatments should be made.
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Why Should I Avoid Treatment for Grubs at Certain Times of Year?
As the year winds to a halt, grubs become dormant with no damage caused to your lawns from November through January. However, as winter winds to a halt grubs emerge after thaw and begin to cause moderate damage.
This is still not the ideal time for treating grubs.
Such feeding later ceases between April through July with no visible damage to your lawn.
Although no damage is seen, this period (April through July and onwards) is considered an acceptable treatment period because adult beetles lay eggs at this time.
Conclusion
It’s important to know when to engage grubs using the right control strategies.
For this to be possible, you should observe the timeline of their activities and presence. In July, beetles flock around after their mating season in search of favorite spots to lay their eggs.
This event cannot be stopped. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on your lawns for any changes. Early to mid-August see eggs being hatched and grubs unleashed on your lawn.
This is the right time to attack. Now, there are several measures to adopt when treating for grubs.
Timing is everything when it comes to grub treatment. We’ve supplied you with details on how to go about this process. This should help greatly in giving you the results you seek.