Japanese Lawn Beetle can equally affect a Saint Augustine lawn, as it can with any other lawn type. The damage from Japanese Beetle occurs when the grubs from these beetles, called larvae, eat through the roots of the sod, and damage the lawn in areas wherever they are most active. Japanese Beetle will equally enjoy eating on any of the other plants in our gardens too, so control is a must.

Japanese Lawn Beetles are most readily identified by their often striking shell colors of bright green and metallic bronze, and are often seen flying around our lawns and gardens and yards.

Control Of Japanese Lawn Beetle

Japanese Beetles can cause a lot of damage to turf and plants very quickly, and as such we really do need to control these lawn pests as best we can, and at any time we first notice them in our yards.

The very best way to control Japanese Lawn Beetle in Saint Augustine lawns, and other lawn types, is by the use of a special pesticide which is applied to the lawn. This pesticide will then work to destroy the larvae (grubs) which are damaging the sod, but will not control the beetles themselves.

Eradicating the larvae will stop any further turf damage from the Japanese Beetle larvae that are already in the sod, but will not stop the Japanese Beetles from laying more eggs in the turf, which would then reinfect the lawn.

With this in mind, we can never believe a single pesticide treatment will solve our Japanese Lawn Beetle problem. Instead, if we still see the beetles flying around our yards, then we must keep vigilant to check for another infestation, and then treat the lawn again to control the next generation of larvae.

Treating Japanese Lawn Beetles

There really is no effective treatment to treat Japanese Lawn Beetles themselves. There are Pheromone Traps that do attract these beetles and will indeed control them, but there is one major problem with these Beetle Traps:

Pheromone Traps do a great job at attracting a lot of beetles, but they could never remove all the beetles that they do attract, sometimes only about 50% of beetles are trapped and destroyed in these traps. Oftentimes these traps will attract many many beetles from neighboring yards, and bring them into our yards, control half these beetles, and leave the rest of these lawn pests to mate and lay their eggs right in our lawn!!!

Making our Japanese Lawn Beetle problem much much worse!

Japanese Lawn Beetle Pesticide

Pesticide to control Japanese Lawn Beetle larvae will be available for sale in most good garden supply stores. Each treatment will be slightly different, with different application rates and ratios for mixing.

Be sure to follow manufacturers recommendations when using these products.

Chickens!

While most of us don’t have chickens any longer, for those of us who do, or who can, a few chickens will devour swarms of Japanese Beetle very quickly and happily, and keep them out of our yards for good. Not a tip that’s useful for everyone anymore, but still worth mentioning.