Grubs are the larval stage of Japanese beetles or June bugs. You should wait at least until you see live beetles. Usually you can tell if you are going to have a bad grub season by the numbers of beetles swarming your porch lights.

There is some great data on the Internet as far as the life cycle of the Grub and the best time to attack them.

I am by no means an expert or can give the fantastic data that dchall continually gives, but from what I have read, the best time I beleive is the July/August/September timeframe when the beetle lays the eggs, they hatch, and start a feeding frenzy on the roots.

I tried to add alink to North Carolina States website that has the life cycle picture

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/insects/white_grubs.aspx#

July is usually good. Grubs are a problem in many ways. When they feed you often don't recognize the damage until too long after they have stopped feeding. Once they stop feeding it is too late to kill them. July should catch them early enough, but I am against spraying without having a good reason. Maybe a good idea on the 4th of July is to dig up a square foot of sod to find grubs. If you have more than 12 grubs per square feet, then spray whatever you want. If you have fewer than that, then you'll never notice any damage.

I had good success controlling grubs with curative treatments using Sevin insecticide in mid-late September just prior to overseeding bermudagrass in the sandhills of S.C. I know that everyone's situation is different, so the timing of an insecticide application will depend on where you live. A mid-late summer application would be my preference.

Actually, since timing is of the essence in controlling them, probably better to do a split application of half and half maybe a couple or few weeks apart. Kind of like pre-emergnets and the imporatnce of timing that in the spring.....

(as dchall says, want to control throwing this stuff out like candy).

It's going to suck if I have to wait until July to deal with the grub problem. To make matters worse I have raccoons digging up the yard looking for grubs leaving the lawn overnight every night looking like a mine field. I've been spreading milky spore around but does that ONLY infect the early larval stages of the grub or the adult stage of the grub? I'm trapping raccoons and after trapping 4 of them I'm getting tired of the problem.

Fred Mertz:

Your answer is at Purdue

...............................................

Here is a link that might be useful: Purdue Turf Tips

Technically the adult stage of the grub is the beetle that swarms your porch light. I believe milky spore is a disease that infects the grub at any stage of grubbiness.

My problem is similar to PCKAPECK...
I had a severe localized grub infestation last year.
All Fall I fought a losing battle keeping the skunks from digging for grubs. I thought the problem would be gone after a severe winter. SURPRISE, the skunks are already back digging, I assume for grubs. Are they really finding grubs? Would putting down some of the 24 hour grub kill do any good? Any other suggestions for keeping the skunks away? I've tried the animal urine & hot pepper tricks with little success. thanks.

Since the last post here I have trapped a Possum and another Raccoon. They are making holes and besides that there are moles or voles where you see raised tunnels with entrance holes. I usually just step on them to level it to the ground.

If this is all grub related I hope this Milky Spore starts working quickly.

Oddly enough the front lawn has none of this problem and I have been focusing on taking better care of the back yard with topdressing with compost.

I'm getting tired of having to drown the critters in the Hav-A-Hart cage and then tossing them in the compost piles as they are huge and basically hog up the entire bin as I dare not turn it once they are buried in the pile as the stink is wretched. I have 6 bins and all of them have an animal in there decomposing. I have no more room for dead animals.

I was wondering if it's time to put in some milky spores to catch some grubs coming out of the wintering cycle.

Anyone have an idea I just caught ANOTHER raccoon today. I regret waking up every morning walking through the minefield of holes dug by possums and raccoons, and tunnels traversed by voles and then finding an animal trapped that I must drown and bury all before heading off to work in the morning and I;m not a morning person. Hell, I feel like I am on the set of the Steven King movie Pet Cemetary and frankly, I'm getting sick of this.