On Oct 7, 7:10 pm, Helen R wrote:
simon garfield;752558 Wrote:

first off i am new here so hi to all.

I have a question that i hope some of you might be able to help with,
over the past few days, it looks like ravens, have been attacking my
lawn leaving hugh patches of grass torn up and scatered all over the
place. I believe this is because they are after grubs of some sort.

My question is does anyone know of a way to prevent this happening, and
what would be the best course of action to replace the bare patches,
reseed or place turf in the holes as some are at least 90 sqr cm.

hi to all again and hope to hear from you

Hi Simon

The ravens are most likely to be digging for 'chafer grubs'
(http://tinyurl.com/ynsfty) or 'leatherjackets'
(http://tinyurl.com/25xavh) (daddy long legs grubs). You can treat
before the end of october with a nematode which will usually kill the
grubs within 2 or 3 weeks. You may need to retreat next season as well

The damage can be repaired either with turf or by overseeding. Seed
will still germinate before winter, but if the temperatures are
consistently below 12 degrees C then you'd be best waiting until spring
to overseed.

--
Helen R


I'm no expert on using nematodes to kill grubs, but from what I think
is correct, I see a couple of problems with this.

Nematodes are most effective when the grubs are still very small,
which would have been a couple months ago, like Jul/Aug. Second, if
he's having extensive turf damage from animals right now, he's looking
at 2-3 weeks of more damage, unitl the nematodes work, if they will
work at all this late in season. While I think nematodes can be fine
for prevention, I think at this stage, he needs something quick and
powerful, ie insecticide.