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sockiescat · 29-12-2007, 04:49 AM

Omelet;767675]In article
,
"Dan L." wrote:

In article ,
Omelet wrote:

In article
,
z wrote:

On Dec 26, 1:23*pm, z wrote:
On Dec 25, 1:53*am, sockiescat
wrote:

Steve Young
sockiescat" wrote
-
my brother has grubs in his garden and is really
getting frustrated about it. he asked me if i would
post in this forum for him to ask what he can do to
get rid of them.
any information that would help him solve this
problem would be greatly appreciated.
i have googled a number of pages but to me i think
i would get more information here than i got doing
the google search. thanks for any help. cyaaaaa, sockiescat.-

2 non-chemical predator methods come to mind.
Nematodes or milky spore. Google each. Many who sell one may also
sell
the
other. I see you're in the UK, so my US sources would be of little
help.

actually i am from ontario canada. so your help is a lot of help to
me
thank you. i will google the info u gave me and hopefully i can
:find
something to help my brother. cyaaaaaaa, sockiescat .

I haven't had any success with nematodes, which I attribute to it
appearing to be a bit on the cold side for them; and I live in CT,
south of you. Plus, biological remedies can knock back a huge problem
but never really get it down to minimal nuisance, let alone eradicate
it.

So, here's my thinking/experience. Firstly, grub problems come and go,
sometimes. The best predictor seems to be the number of those damn
chafer beetles that I see on the screen with the outdoor lights on at
night, for obvious reasons. Years with not many beetles, I can ignore
the grub issue. You can't tell from the garden/lawn itself, until it's
too late in the spring, and that doesn't mean the grub problem will be
the same in the fall.

When I see a beetle problem shaping up, I have ended up resorting to
chemical warfare, reluctantly. This is the only "unnatural" thing I
put on the lawn/garden, fertilizers included. But the grubs are so
destructive when they're there, I make an exception for them. I don't
treat the vegetable garden, but I don't have problems there,
presumably because of the mulching with plastic and cultivating and
whatever. Actually, I don't have problems in the ornamental gardens
either, presumably for the same reason. Just the lawn.

Anyway, after a lot of study (I used to be a biochemist) I settled on
imidacloprid as the safest grub killer which actually works. It's a
Bayer product which goes under a bunch of names, in a bunch of
commercial products. it used to be in Grubex, then they took it out,
now they put it back in again, so you have to look at the ingredient
list. It's much more toxic to insects than other critters, including
even earthworms; and the application methods ensure it soaks into the
ground rather then getting onto flowers and stuff to keep it away from
bees and other non-underground insects, so as far as I can figure it's
the safest thing that still does the job. (They have a lot of trouble
in Europe, where apparently they just spray it on commercial crops and
the bees get killed) *As i said, though, I still don't let it near the
food, just to be on the safe side. (It's a nicotine derivative, btw;
in the old days, people used to use nicotine as an insecticide, since
it's even more toxic to bugs than it is to humans).

But, whatever you use, the key is that you have to do it before you
know you have a problem; thus the emphasis on counting beetles. By the
time you see damage, it's way too late. Even by october, the grubs
have already damaged the roots of the lawn or whatever so much that
killing them then won't make any difference, and you still won't see
the damage until next spring. You need to kill the grubs in late
August or September, based entirely on your estimate of the beetle
population.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

PS Imidacloprid is also the active ingredient in the once a month flea
stuff i used to use on my cats, who are more sensitive to poisons than
people or dogs, because the other products didn't seem to work as
well; and they lived to ripe old ages with no evidence of nerve
damage, which is the toxic action of imidacloprid and the other
nicotine derivatives. oddly enough, it costs about the same to treat a
cat as an entire yard.

I hesitate to suggest this, but...

Once per year, when flea season is just getting started, I treat all the
pets with "Revolution" and dust the entire yard with 5% Sevin on the
same day.

I don't really like to do this, but fleas can bleed a pet to death...
and at least Sevin biodegrades in about a week so I get to mostly keep
my insect predator population that I value so much!

Each time I do this, the next morning finds dozens of grubs dead on top
of the soil...

And it works VERY well to control fleas as long as I do the sevin and
the revolution on the same day...

Later in the season, during the rains, I also use beneficial nematodes,
but I do that more to control the fire ants. It appears to be effective.
My two cents added

I spray sevin as well on the yard. I also do not like to use sevin or
any chemicals. I lost half of my garden last year to grubs.
Grubs/Japanese beatles ate all of my green beans and leaves off my
pepper plants and my ... roses ... arghhhh

I have thought about and have not tried it yet is "Milky Spore", it is
very expensive and needs several treatments to get rid of grubs.

I believe, I compounded my problem by solving another. Worried about
mosquitos and the West Nile Disease and I sprayed my yard for bugs;
mosquitos, ticks and fleas. I now believe that stuff whatever I used
aslo kill the good bugs that in turned ate or killed the grubs. The
Grubs are worse than ever.

I sometimes have these corporate conspiracy theories. It seems that the
general bugs formulas are separate from the grub formulas. Use one and
forced to buy the other. A vicious circle. Kill the bad bugs along with
the good bugs.

I use frontline on the dog. Hmmm Spray the garden or the dog?
So far, the bugs are winning in my world.

Enjoy Life ... Dan

What about BT? It works for Mosquito larvae and just about any
caterpillars, and it's organic. Won't kill the predatory insects.

Anyone ever tried BT for the grubs? I don't see why it would not work?
--
Peace, Om

Remove - (dash) to validate gmail.

"Human nature seems to be to control other people until they put their foot down." -- Steve Rothstein

thanks everyone for your input i will forward the information to my brother
and hopefully something will help him get control of the grubs.
he loves working in his garden its his only relief from the work that he does as a hard rock miner. it can be very stressful for him at work and this is his one release from it. again thanks for all the input. cyaaaaaa, sockiescat

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