 | Brad Lechner
owner and operator of Lechner’s Landscape & Lawn Service, LLC, has been in the lawn maintenance & landscaping industry since 1984. He is a certified Kansas Nursery Dealer & Certified Lawn Pest Control Applicator. Brad also maintains memberships in PLCAMA (Professional Lawn Care Association of Mid-America), Project Living Green, The Wichita Lawn, Flower and Garden Show, and The Better Business Bureau. Lechner's Landscape & Lawn Service does landscaping, lawn maintenance, lawn fertilization programs, tree & shrub insect and disease programs, tree & shrub pruning, seeding and sodding, and positive corrective drainage. You may contact Brad by e-mailing him at: lechnerslawn@aol.com, or by phone at (316) 729-2600. |
Lawn, Garden & Landscaping
2001-07-01 16:07:00
Of Crabgrass & Grubworms
Question: Last year I had problems with my lawn. First during the late spring, it was crabgrass. Then I lost over 50% of my lawn to grub worms. Last Fall I re-seeded. What do I need to do this year to prevent these headaches?
Answer: Crabgrass (digitaria sanguinalis) is one of the most common warm-season, annual, grassy weeds. Crabgrass sprouts from seeds in the early spring growing rapidly and producing seeds all summer until the first killing frost in the fall. The seeds lie dormant over the winter and sprout in the Spring. Applying a pre-emergent herbicide (such as Dimension, Barricade or Pendamethiyn) to your lawn in early Spring prior to germination can prevent crabgrass. If a pre-emergent was not applied before germination you will need to apply a grassy-weed post emergent (such as Acclaim or MSMA). If crabgrass has germinated in your yard, I would recommend calling a professional turf applicator.White grub worms are the larval stage of several different beetles, including the Japanese beetle, the May or June beetle, the European chaffer, and the Asiatic garden beetle. As the name indicates, white grubs are white to cream-colored. 'U' or 'C' shaped worms range from one to one and one-half inch in length and have a segmented body. They have three pairs of legs immediately behind their tan to brown heads. They have smooth, shiny hind sections.Their life cycle starts when the various beetles known to most as June bugs burrow into the soil to lay their eggs in the late summer. After the eggs hatch, the grubs feed on the roots of the grass before moving deeper into the soil. As the soil warms in the spring and early summer the grubs pupate and then emerge from the soil as adult beetles. The adults stay above ground for only a few weeks then they return to the soil to lay their eggs. The best way to control grubs is to prevent them. The best way to prevent grub worm infestation is to apply a grub worm preventative (such as Merit or Mach II). This application should be applied between May 15th and June 15th. If a preventative is not applied, you will spot damaged areas as irregularly shaped patches of dead grass that you can pull up like a loose piece of carpet. These symptoms appear when the grub population has been very high in the Spring or Fall. In addition to the damage directly caused by grub worms, there is indirect damage. Birds, skunks, raccoons and moles will also do damage to your turf while searching for grubs, one of their sources of food.If you did not apply preventative grub control, grubs will be eating the roots from under your turf and damage will not be visible until extreme temperatures or drought conditions occur. By this time grubs have destroyed the root system of your turf and put it in an unrecoverable condition. The only solution at this point is to over-seed your yard. I would strongly recommend applying a preventive application for grub control. Grub population will not always be high enough to cause serious damage, but prevention is much less expensive in the long run than completely renovating your yard after the damage.
