Black beetle can be a problem for owners of all lawn types, including Saint Augustine grass lawns. A native of Africa, the black beetle ges through various life stages, each of which can cause at least some damage to our lawns. But with this possible damage also comes benefits too. In every case I have ever been asked if Black Lawn Beetle was damaging a lawn, it has never once been found to be true. Indeed many of these lawns being investigated often can have lawn beetle, which can be very common, but the responsibility of poor lawn health almost always does not lie with the lawn beetles, but usually with the lawn owner themselves.
In all these cases the lawn owner wasn't keeping their lawn care up to speed, and then often went looking for a culprit to blame for the lawn not looking its best. And the most common culprit that takes the blame over all others is the common lawn beetle.
The fact is that a Saint Augustine lawn would need to be very heavily infested with beetles for any damage to be seen at all, and the truth is that most lawns will only ever have very small numbers of these beetles, incapable of doing any damage at all.
Besides this, at the times of year when the beetle is most actively chewing on the roots of our lawn, our lawn is growing at its maximum speed and health, and will very quickly repair any minor damage, often without the lawn owner ever noticing. And once our lawns go dormant over the colder months, so too do lawn beetles become dormant.
Lawn beetles in lawns can in fact be of great benefit to lawns, as they burrow through the soil, they're actually doing a wonderful job of naturally aerating the soil for us, and this can be a wonderful benefit for our Saint Augustine turf.
How To Control Lawn Beetle In Saint Augustine Grass
Lawn beetle is very easily treated in Saint Augustine grass by the use of simple pesticide dusts which are commonly available for a small price. The lawn beetle dust is applied to the lawn and watered in. The pesticide works its way through the soil, eradicating the black beetles as a result.
However, before doing this, it might be worth rethinking this approach, and it is worthwhile that the lawn owner reconsider treating black lawn beetle at all. Black beetle do provide benefits to the lawn soil, they do very minor damage which in most cases will never be noticed, and in most cases we're simply pouring pesticides into the environment for no benefit, or in fact, loss of benefits that these beetles so often provide to us.
Having said that, Lawn Beetle should be treated in Saint Augustine grass, and all other lawn types at any time they can be seen to be growing into large numbers, at which time they can indeed overrun a lawn and cause damage, though such cases will be rare.
