Grub Destruction - Recovery?

[PSU4ME]

Hi All,
I help my neighbor across the street with his lawn.....had it humming nice this spring but it has been in decline since the later half of the summer. I thought it was going dormant.......we just looked tonight and its grubs.

So bayer grubkiller plus is going down tomorrow. I also have a PreM down.

There are some areas that are toast and will need a reseed.

Two main questions:
1 - how aggressive do i need to be to break the PreM barrier and try to get some seed to sprout?

2 - is there anything we can do, outside of killing the grubs to help recovery? We are currently doing weekly urea apps. That a good or bad thing?


Open to any and all suggestions!

Thanks in advance!

[PSU4ME]

You can see the devastation here:

[KnickLeDime]

So as someone who last year dealt with exactly this scenario except for a lot more damage. First thing you should read if you haven't seen is this..

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/how_to_ch ... _your_lawn

That looks like grub damage, do you have pencil like pock-marks all over from birds? Does the turf just pull up or can you scrape it off like a rug with your foot?

From personal experience your best bet is to lay down a curative application. Your issue is going to be based on what I've been able to discern last year is that you are kind of doing it late meaning that grubs have been feeding for months by now. At some point if not yet, they will start to burrow down to survive winter. But it's probably worth putting down a curative to put a dent in their numbers.

Absolutely plan on putting down preventive next year at the appropriate time.

As for grass and recovery, you will be shocked how resiliant grass is. Take a look at condition of my lawn exactly a year ago.




This is that same spot a year later with doing one application or curative last fall, and one application of preventive (GrubEx) this spring.



It won't happen overnight, but if you feed based on a good soil remediation plan it and put preventive it will bounce back.

I would ABSOLUTELY NOT do any seeding this fall. You are to late, and you need to correct the underlying soil condition, pest etc.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Yikes that is bad. For the thin areas apply small doses of N regularly and water to nurse it back.

For the bare areas, preach the benefits of grubex to your neighbor for next year, and reseed or preferably sod it this late of you can match it.

Jscar up the surface a lot to take out the pre emergent. An hour with a hard rake will do fine on 1 or 2 K.

Be prepared to treat this spring too. I'd plan on a curative like dylox before you see damage.

[PSU4ME]

Thanks $.5/$.10 - looks like you had a nice recovery!

I've (well he) has some bare areas that will need reseeding. His grass is about 30% KBG so its going to have a hard time healing on its own and some of the areas are dead wipe outs.

@HLG - i have him on a grubX schedule.......he said the bags are still in his shed...I looked at him like "you're kidding me"......ugh

It's raked out now and the dylox is going down. I'm planning to seed with some left over blueberry/bedazzled i have and ill likely mix in a little bit of a lowes special to better match his lawn. I've seen KBG seeded 10/15 here take off just fine and i'll need ever bit of a head start i can get for next spring.

Planning for a May 1 grubX for him followed by a May 30, 2nd dylox treatment if I dig and find any visible grubs.

Darn grubs!