Grubs hatch mid-August! After this time, you can no longer use grub preventative… which prevents the eggs from hatching, which has already happened this year, so now you have to apply a Grub Killer to your lawn! You won’t see the damage until well into September, when you will see brown patches start to appear in your lawn. Dig and lift up one square foot of sod, and if you have a grub problem, you’ll see at least 8-10 grubs under the sod in that one square foot of area. In general for any yard, if you go out and dig up a one square foot area of sod, you may see a grub or two, which is normal and nothing to fret about. The higher number of grubs is where you start seeing problems.
Grubs typically tend to lay their eggs in lush green grass in June & July, with the eggs hatching in mid August. So if you’re watering your yard and keeping it super green and healthy, the grubs are going to love that. These lawns will be more apt to have eggs hatching and grub problems, especially following a summer like this one, because they’ve more than likely laid their eggs in your nice, lush, thick green turf & avoided yards that are on the dry side. These grubs are high-class, living their lavish lifestyles under your lawn. You can apply grub killer mid August through October- this is when you’ll really start to notice damage if you have a grub problem. Grub killer will kill grubs right away, as soon as there is direct contact. It kills within 24 hours. You will need to apply Grub Killer and then water it in well right away, so that it gets carried down to where the grubs are immediately… do not wait until it rains. Grubs dwell right below the root system of your sod and they feed on the roots. This causes the roots to die, leading to those horrible brown patches that you see on the surface of your lawn. This grass won’t grow back, it will have to be removed and re-seeded for new grass to grow there.
If you’re having grub damage this year, we highly suggest that you apply grub preventative next year during the months of May, June & July, before grub eggs can hatch!!
Lawn grub damage as chinch larva damaging grass roots causing a brown patch disease in the turf as a composite image isolated on a white background.
