Winning the War on Grubs: The Right Timing Saves Your Lawn

Tired of seeing your once-lush lawn marred by brown patches and damaged grass? It's time to declare war on grubs! Join us as we dive into the fascinating world of these destructive insects and reveal how to tackle them head-on. We'll unravel the life cycle of grubs, from the egg-laying female beetles to the ravenous larvae that can wreak havoc on your yard in a matter of days.

Discover the importance of timing when it comes to grub control, with the best window for applying powerful products for maximum protection throughout the grub season. With our expert guidance, you'll be well-equipped to reclaim your beautiful lawn and say goodbye to grub problems for good. Don't let your lawn be a feast for these pesky insects - listen in and take control now!

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Transcript

Scott: 0:00

This episode is the final word on grubs. Everybody needs to pay attention. We're gonna teach you some stuff because I'm mad as hell about this. Let's do it.

Mike: 0:27

Hey Scott, you wanna calm down a little bit, haha.

Scott: 0:30

Yeah, I'm just. We need to get the word out.

Mike: 0:34

Well, I gotta tell ya, you know there's the, You know the professionals are out there. We gotta do an explanation. We had one lady. She had damage in her lawn And she wanted to know what caused the damage. The lawn service person, the technician, came over and goes well, ma'am, you got grubs. She immediately paused, thought about it for a few seconds and then you know what her comeback was We can't have grubs, We live in a gated community, Haha. And this is just to show how not necessarily ignorant, but they are ignorant of as to how and what a grub does, But basically what it is, where it comes from and how it basically can devastate a lawn, What the life cycle of it is. Did you do your homework?

Scott: 1:20

on that. Stop right there. Life cycle This is what I wanna get out. Okay, across the US of A.

Mike: 1:26

It's an adult beetle that lays its eggs. but what and how and when?

Scott: 1:30

So we haven't talked about grubs since season one way back with Dave Savinsky.

Mike: 1:35

Oh God, that was almost five years ago.

Scott: 1:37

I mean it was just part of the lawn's show, it wasn't the whole show. What we need to get out there everybody is when grubs start their life cycle.

Mike: 1:48

But when they do their damage, the most is the most.

Scott: 1:50

Exactly When they start their life cycle, when their eggs are laid and they are larvae and then they grow a little bit. that's when they start munching on your lawn like the fall army worm just underneath. Okay, let me yum, yum, yum, yum yum yum.

Mike: 2:06

Can I just give a basics? Here it is. You got a beetle. It doesn't matter if it's a Japanese beetle or the June bug that keeps slamming into your screen or the front porch while the light's on, It's a beetle. The baby beetle is called a grub. The mother beetle, or the female, will go into your lawn, burrow down. she'll lay her eggs there and then pop out. She lays thousands of eggs. She's just basically very fertile. But basically those eggs are going to develop into a larvae and they're going to burrow down. but in order to burrow down they have to eat. They become, oh gosh, voracious eaters. They prefer anything with a root system on it, but anything that has, let's say, for instance, bluegrass lawns, anything that's been manicured, the mother beetle will lay her eggs in the area in the same neighborhood that she grew up in, where she came from. So if you've got a bluegrass lawn, if you've got yourself this pristine turf type fescue lawn, where it's been maintained, fertilized et cetera, and you're watering it exactly when it needs to be, but you're noticing these brown patches coming up, Don't go out there and give it any more water. You got a problem. Get somebody that knows what they're talking about to go and check it out. Now. Scott's going to go on from the time when they lay their eggs to Well, that's the interesting part.

Scott: 3:18

What I don't think people understand is when this cycle starts. We get people coming into the garden center and saying, you know, and spring, early spring says I've got grubs, and we're just like kind of chuckling, yeah, you may have a grub or two. And they don't understand. Those are the adults. Let's set it straight here They're going to turn into the beetle. Yes, the life cycle of a grub Asian beetle at the larvae stage starts late July, august. They don't start with spring. Like everything else starts brand new right.

Mike: 3:57

That's right Now. See, those grubs that are surfacing right now are going to turn into an adult beetle. They're going to fly around, they're going to eat. The guys are going to be bored crazy. Then the female comes along. She goes come on buddies. And then they go ahead and they mate And she's going to lay the eggs. Those eggs are going to develop into something when in early August.

Scott: 4:15

Thank you, Late July early August. That's when you get the voracious eaters. Okay, So this we need to get everybody on the timeline here. You may have a grub in spring, That's. I'm going to call that an adult grub. He doesn't eat as much as he did.

Mike: 4:35

They're just going to pupate into the beetle.

Scott: 4:37

They're getting ready to transform into the beetle. They had a rough winter. They just need a little little snack. It's not going to damage your lawn beyond repair. The guys in August are the ones you know if they're there on that one.

Mike: 4:53

they're going to devastate the whole thing Almost like a tomato horn worm type activity. You know, and they can do so much damage in such a little bit of time.

Scott: 5:00

Exactly The fall army worm, the tomato horn worm.

Mike: 5:04

these are the underground grass pests of those stars And they will devastate an entire lawn in a matter of a few days. You don't notice the damage until they're done doing their gnawing on it for a week after the fact. So what do you do, scott? What do you recommend? I mean, okay, i've got the lawn. I'm not going to do anything as far as putting down a systemic insecticide such as merit until maybe the middle to the end of July to control the adult. there I mean not the adult, but the baby beetle.

Scott: 5:34

What we want to teach you is most products. Let's say you're a do it yourself and you go to the garden center and you want a product for grubs. It's not a strong. Can I use that word as a lawn service application?

Mike: 5:51

Yeah, they got to be licensed to apply their products, right? You can get this over the counter. What's? what's the generic name for it? Merit. Okay, now, merits is systemic insecticide. It works sway into the system of the plant, including the root system, and when the insect starts to feed on it, it thinks it's full and it will never feed again And it just dies off. Stars itself, right, because it thinks it's full. It thinks it's full and it's not going to turn into anything other than you know good fertilizer for the root system of the grass.

Scott: 6:18

Like some of our diets, but we're smart enough to know we may need to eat something more.

Mike: 6:22

Speak for yourself, Mr.

Scott: 6:24

Sandstrom, but anyway. So what I'm saying is, if you do it yourself, those products last two and a half, three months, 12 weeks, yeah, so the perfect time to put the do it yourself for merit product down is just after July 4.

Mike: 6:42

Let that be perfect. If you wanted to go on a calendar day, yeah.

Scott: 6:45

Think of that. July 4 is like Oh, july 4 equals grub control time. So that's what you have to do timing wise, good. Then you're going to get your 12 weeks, and that's going to be after the Asian beetle goes down the ground, lays her larvae eggs, and then they start to munch And you've got full strength merit down there protecting your, yeah, the ones that we notice the most are the Asian beetles or the Japanese beetle, which you know.

Mike: 7:16

Give you a little history. Everybody in the late 60s thought that they were going to be devastating the world. They were going to defoliate the United States of America. Well, they're, the. They seem to be the most prevalent right now, but they're not defoliating everything, because we seem to have a little bit of a handle on it, and that's with the merit because there's a 12 week window, which means that that's three months. So you got July, august, september. You're going to control the grub. By that time they're repopulating the earth about. You know, let's say, if somebody that didn't do it about the middle of August, the adults doing something anywhere between well, let's say, the end of July and the middle of August, by going back and laying her eggs. Right, you've got that merit down there in the system of the plant that when they come up and they develop in or they pupate into the larvae, they're going to die. Now we're going to go and say, if you need to, this is going to be a protection.

Scott: 8:05

So for the non-duet yourself, for the people that have law and services, grub control is usually an extra expense, of course. An extra part, an extra. This is a service Yeah, a service in their program, so you really should sign up for that.

Mike: 8:22

I don't want to make it sound like you know these law and services are trying to milk you for money. I mean sure there's probably a charlatan or two that's out there.

Scott: 8:29

Well, because their products that's stronger than you can get at your garden center cost more money than what you're going to spend at the garden center. Absolutely, and it works better And it's a product you got licensed to apply it.

Mike: 8:41

I mean, it's a stronger ingredient, it works longer and better. It's kind of like a pharmaceutical that you have to go and get via the prescription of the physician versus, let's say, over the counter. You can still get something on the law and service that's going to give you the protection and they guarantee it, or you can do it yourself and not have a guarantee.

Scott: 9:02

There are some products out there that are called pre emergent, that they try to get you to buy in April and they say put it down To me, that's the wrong time of year If you're only getting three months out of a product May, july, august, may, june, july you're not going to have that control.

Mike: 9:20

Yeah, so you got to do it again, 12 weeks later.

Scott: 9:23

Yes, now there is a product that, if you do have legitimate grubs, no matter when spring or in fall, it's a contact rub killer.

Mike: 9:34

Right, that's DILOX, that's the generic name of it. Yes, if they see him while they're digging their garden, i don't want you to put it in your garden. you know. it only lasts for about a week to ten days. Some people say within 24 hours, 24 hour contact killer. What you do is you sprinkle it over the whole yard according to the directions that they want you to put it down at. You water it in. If you do not, water in this thing will evaporate. The active ingredients are not going to work for you. You got to water it in. As soon as it's watered in, it percolates down into the soil, into the root base, for where the grass plants Are, where you see the grubs. It'll knock the grubs out immediately, but it only lasts for a short period of time. Correct, where this merit will last 12 plus weeks. So the the way that the merit works versus the way that dialogues works. Dialogues is a contact killer. It's going to knock them out just like that. The merit is going to last, just in case there's a window that it missed For 12 weeks and they got a nibble on the grass. You got to basically have a decoy root system to go and have nibble, but they're done once they start to nibble on it Because they think they're full. They're never going to eat again. They're going to become fertilizer for the root system that they were nibbling on earlier. Now, okay, dialogues you can use early in the season if you want to or you feel that you need to, if you're really really good at Diagnosing a lawn, and when you can probably use it during that 12 week period that we're talking about, that window, the end of July to the end of August. Well, that's not what to have. The end of September?

Scott: 11:01

well, if you have, if you have a consistent grub problem, you may need to do both kinds in the, you know, august, september, october time period you may.

Mike: 11:10

You may. I mean if you want to. Really, if you've got a heavy infestation, you want to knock them out immediately before they do that damage that you notice two weeks later. Yeah, put the dialogues down. Don't overlap with merit. Do the merit only in accordance to what the package says.

Scott: 11:24

And that's basically about the middle of, say, july 4th, all the way in through the middle of August so what we're trying to say here is Don't necessarily and I'm just gonna say don't do grub control Pre-emergent in the springtime. Wait for that July 5th mark and then do it. Then you're getting the best bang for your buck. You're a kill ratio, may I say, is gonna go up. Yeah, i mean, why waste money in the spring when those grubs that you may see are adults And they're not gonna do damage?

Mike: 11:57

we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna briefly do this And do it quickly. If you go to your google the life cycle of a grub and they have the chart Yeah, you're gonna see the chart You're gonna notice that the grubs are gonna start coming up and feasting on the spring root system of the grass very little, but then they're gonna just ate into a beetle. They're gonna fly around, they're gonna come back in and lay their eggs anywhere between The fourth of July in the middle of August. Those eggs, basically, are gonna start to feed on the root system before they go back down, which is going to be around the middle of September, where they're gonna go down below that freeze line and start to pupate. They're gonna, over winter and completely do that. We same cycle again the following spring. They're gonna percolate up, they're gonna nibble a little bit, but they're gonna turn into the beetle, they're gonna mate, they're gonna lay their eggs again where they grew up at, and then it's gonna be the complete cycle all over the cliff notes of that is The damaging life cycle starts in.

Scott: 12:54

I'm gonna say August, okay. Yeah, that's when the damaging larvae do their worst to your lawn, that's when you need full strength. Merit working, that's right.

Mike: 13:08

So put it down just before that if you have a line of service, insist your lawn service representative puts it down between July 4 in the middle of August. If you don't have a lawn service might want to consider getting one. If You don't want to consider getting one and doing it yourself, you get yourself the over-the-counter product called merit and you put that down. That's a mat of clover. You put that down Again about the same time as Scott's recommending July 4 to the 15th of August.

Scott: 13:40

And I will also post that graphic Oh, that's cool on the Facebook and Instagram account so everybody can see that Burrowing down, overwintering, deep down, and then they come back for spring just before they transition right and they fly away, and then they go and mate and, have you know, lay the eggs again in the place where they grew up at. So don't freak out if you find a grubber to in spring. They're not going to do a bunch of damage notice how calm Scott is. He's now very comfortable. now He's I'm, i'm zenning on it.

Mike: 14:13

Well, okay, yeah, he's got his legs crossed And he's holding his fingers the central finger on his thumb, together going oh.

Scott: 14:21

Oh no, I mean I just well, I know it upset you, but I know it's, but how long did it take for you to understand? Well, yeah, i mean, i get it. I'm not blaming people or Mad at people for it, i just want to Pass the word around. Okay, let's, let's this. let's be done with this subject.

Mike: 14:39

It's easy to figure out and it's easy to control if you know what to look for right So what do you say, scott? You want to go up and have your? uh, well, margarita, hey, margarita, okay, we'll see y'all. Green thumbs up, green thumbs up. Baby talk at you. Thanks for listening to your midwest garden. If you like today's conversation, please share this podcast with friends and family and don't forget to click on the subscribe button So you won't miss any future episodes. Plus, if you have any show topics you'd like us to discuss, head on over to our Sponsors facebook page, which is black diamond garden center, and message them your topic idea for all of us at your midwest garden Podcast. I'm michael work, the garden guy. Hope you enjoyed today's conversation.