Chances are you’ve got some – or a lot of – grub damage this year. We’ve addressed this issue in a number of communities throughout the Twin Cities the past few years. How do you know if you’ve got grubs or not? Our friends at the University of Minnesota’s Turfgrass Science Department have excellent guidelines in their recent newsletter.
Identifying Grub Damage
There are several indications that white grubs are damaging your lawn. These include:
- Irregular patches of dead or dying grass that resemble drought stress.
- Early signs of a white grub infestation are apparent when an irrigation system has been running or we have had regular rainfall and the drought symptoms are still present.
- Moderate grub damage involves observing dead or dying turf with little to no roots when pulling on the turf.
- More severe white grub damage is sometimes not caused by the grubs themselves, but by animals like racoons and skunks turning over the turf to feed on the grubs.
Controlling Grubs
What can you do about grubs? The good news is there are very effective organic solutions to get them under control. The Turfgrass newsletter references a biological insecticide, GrubGone (Baccilus thuringiensis galleriae), as the only known biological insecticide to work effectively. It works as a preventative treatment and needs to be applied in advance of a white grub infestation.
You can find additional information about controlling grubs from our friends at #universityofminnesotaextension Or, contact LUNSETH for a quote on our grub control services. We’ve helped people all around the Twin Cities get their grub damage under control.
