White Grubs/June Bug Larvae

[CortneyRae]

Anyone struggling with these? We have a (seemingly) huge number of these guys in our compost soil in the garden and all I've seen for eliminating them is nematodes. Do these work? Should I even bother? Somewhere I read that entomologists claim only 1 in 100 plants will be damaged by these grubs. I'm worried though that they are munching away at our plants's roots... and since we can't visualize any damage part of me wants to nip these in the bud.



What are your experiences with these? Are they worth the trouble eradicating or just let them be? Any help/advice is much appreciated!

[WayneH]

They make excellent fishing bait for bluegill and crappie!  Chickens and turtles love them too!

I've never worried about them and I've never had a problem that I can blame on them.  I think the people with manicured lawns do battle with them though.

They are probably my favorite live bait for fishing.

[CortneyRae]

We've used the ones we've found for bait as well!

I'm only worried because our garden is a pair of raised beds so if they aren't feeding on our veggie plant roots, what are they eating? I'm not worried about our lawn but I'm nervous that they are nibbling on tomato and kale roots! Though to be fair, many of the ones we've found have been pretty shallow and not down deep near the roots. Maybe this one is best to wait and see?

Thanks Wayne!

[John_Henry]

We've had issue with these this year on our new plot.  Jim suggested beneficial nematodes and milky spore, which I believe to be very good suggestions.  As we've progressed with the plot we have just got rid of them when we find them, and now, touch wood, they don't seem to be doing much damage.  They did hammer our seedlings to start with though.  I read somewhere that they go on the surface at night and you can use egg shells or similar around plants as a deterrent, this obviously helps with slugs and stuff to.  Apparently they will eat you roots though, and I think we lost a few plants to this; but unless you have an infestation I wouldn't worry too much.

[ShenandoahJoe]

Whenever I turn one up, I put it on a fencepost.  It's never there an hour later.  There's good eatin' on those, according to the neighborhood robins.

[CortneyRae]

Well, we did some light digging around and in the two beds last night and pulled out 24 of these guys. SO GROSS. But the husband has set them aside for bait and we are going to put some Milky Spore on it Friday night (when it arrives via Amazon). I'm pretty confident we've lost some seedlings and at least 2 pea plants to these guys based on where we've found them. I'm also willing to give them credit for killing a cucumber and some chard. So we are going ahead with the Milky Spore to prevent any further damage to roots and ergo plants.

Right now I am really wishing we had some ducks/chickens to do this work for us!

Thanks everyone for your input and help!

[WayneH]

The problem with chickens is that they would eat the garden along with the bugs!

Unearthing grubs is one of the benefits of tilling your soil.  I have never had too much of a problem with them.  It might also depend
on the type of grub that you have.  To me, they all kinda look alike.