Thursday, April 18, 2013

Creepy Crawly Damage-Causing Insects


Here is a sampling of the damage causing insects I came across while working on our flower beds this past weekend.

I have to tell you that I am shocked at just how many of the white grubs I uncovered; too many!  I collect about 30 of them, which I fed to the chickens who devoured them in short order.  I squashed about another 30 too, as it was just easier versus stopping constantly to collect them.  After all my hands were already covered and stained in dirt, whats some additional insect innards too?!

What this tells me is that on top of the (6) 40lb bags of lime and the 15,000 square foot bag of Scott's Step 1 fertilizer I put down on our entire lawn I now need to purchase a couple bags of grub control and spread it too before these dudes do too much damage to our lawn.

The shockingly large (3 1/2") white grub is, from what I can determine, a member of the Cerambycidae family, which are long-horned beetles, round-headed wood borers.  The small white grubs are June and Japanese beetles.  And the darker worms are "cutworms", which are moth larvae that sleep in the soil or leaf litter during the day, and wake at night to nibble the tender stems of young plants, cutting them to the ground.

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