Yeah I haven't noticed damage in the past either.

Interesting comment on Japanese beetles as I haven't noticed them too much in recent years. They loved to flock to my roses so it was an easy kill in the morning when they are just hanging there.

The June beetles have close to completely defoliated two oaks of mine. They are only 6' tall or so planted from container about year ago.

I did some extensive research already and found acelepryn to be the best bet. Interested to see if there are other options. Nematodes seems like the next best best but seems a bit complicated.

Just to add a bit of buggy news, 17-yr cicadas have been emerging here in small numbers for more than a week, but I haven't heard a SINGLE one singing. It's a mystery......

I just saw this thread. About a week ago, I sprayed my two red oak saplings that were leafing out. I wasn't spraying for bugs and I don't like to use chemicals at all but I spray for a short time when new growth is coming, using a very mild mix, a drop of two per quart, just because the smell keeps the deer away. Anyways, I looked in the morning and found at least a hundred brown beetles laying around each tree. And even with the spray, they did moderate damage before they died. This only happened two nights in a row, then the beetles disappeared. So I guess I got lucky to just have happed to spray that evening. It's the first year that I've had trouble with beetles doing this. The trees look okay (a week since) and I haven't used any more spray.

The crown of my Forest Knight Oak is about 1/3 larger and its almost defoliated! I was late to the party so good call to spray your tree even it was intended to kill those particular beetles.

The beetles are fewer in numbers now as they are pumping the ground full of eggs which will hatch in roughly 2 weeks. As those grubs grow they feed on the grass roots. By fall they're pretty furious (depending on the generation) and you'll start seeing dead spots in the lawn. Unless this happens then you'll want to treat the turf next spring to kill off next generation of grubs that will hatch.

The stuff that actually kills the grubs in the fall is not something I want to put in the environment.

Mine showed more damage before the leaves expanded. You have to look close if you want to see evidence of it now.

I usually don't see damage to the lawn or anything else for that matter and this is the first time I realized they even did damage. Must have been just the right timing in nature as these bugs usually don't show up until later in the month. The rain sometimes drowns the grubs or the skunks and birds get them as they emerge.

I won't treat the lawn, I use pesticides very sparingly and usually just to protect the young and coming trees. After they're large enough to out grow damage, I don't worry about them.

Yeah you have to have all the right conditions. When it does happen to your turf its brutal though. Happened to me once at a different house.

I had roughly 5,000 sqft of lawn die out. Tons of work to revitalize that.

Here, we have sandy loam. If it doesn't rain for a couple of weeks during hot weather, the grass goes dormant and turns brown. Then it takes quite a bit of moisture to get it going again.

But if our grass winter kills or has mold on it in the spring or something else happens, we don't have to worry because it doesn't take very long for grass to spread and/or revive when the warm weather and rains return. I think it has something to do with the coarseness of the soil. The roots of grass can propagate freely.