Lawn pests
During the last few years incidences of turf damage caused by lawn pests has been steadily growing. Leatherjackets and chafer grubs particularly can have a devastating effect on lawns by eating through the roots just below the surface. This causes the grass to die off in clumps and secondary damage can be caused by birds, foxes and even badgers looking for a free meal.
Badger damage caused by pests
Signs to watch out for are patches of dead or dying grass that is easily pulled out of the soil, unusual bird activity, particularly starlings. In severe cases you should be able to roll the turf back and they should be clearly visible. Products used to control these pests are not available to the home gardener.
Leatherjackets are the lava of crane fly or daddy long legs. They are brown, legless and about 25 / 30mm in length. The females lay eggs in August / September and the lava then begin to hatch in the soil a few weeks later. They have a one year life cycle and are relatively easy to control.
Grubs
Chafer Grubs are a white grub with a brown head and have legs at the front. There are several types of chafers and have different life cycles to the leatherjacket. Dependent on type they can exist in the soil from 1 to 3 years in a larval state. They do not respond to the same treatment used for leatherjackets and they can be difficult to control. Timing is crucial and the pesticide used needs to be applied during May / June. This is when the adult beetles ( May bugs) hatch out. They mate almost immediately, usually in trees, and the females lay eggs in the nearest piece of grass they can find. It is at this point when the lava hatch in the soil and also when they are most vulnerable to the pesticide. It is entirely possible that some lava will not pupate in that year and therefore will remain in the soil damaging the roots. So the pesticide will destroy any newly hatched lava, but where they are in their 2nd or 3rd year in larval stage they can be resistant. In such cases the best course of action is to use nematodes. These are live parasites that basically feed on the grubs. There are “hotspots” for these and any garden not treating the problem can put every other lawn at risk. We recommend that if you have them in your area, or have had them before, you need to have a treatment applied as a preventative measure.
Ants are fast becoming the number 1 pest in lawns. Although there is no treatment officially labelled for ants in turf, we have found that the same treatment used for chafer grubs is very effective in controlling them. A treatment applied in early spring is best to keep the numbers down.