The past week walking along the sidewalk to my office in the courthouse, I noticed the lawn browning and just thought “it must be late summer patch or brown patch”.  One day the custodian came into my office saying, “You’ve got to see this!”.

So we went outside and sure enough, we could roll the turf back like a carpet and there were up to 10 grubs in a small patch the size of a dinner plate in several areas of the lawn!  We definitely had a grub problem but no fear as it can be resolved.

If you are seeing brown patches in your turf right now, see if you can roll the turf back like a carpet.  If it comes easily with no attached roots, it very well may be a grub problem.  See if you can view any grubs present; you may have to dig in the soil a little.

What you can do:

Grubs can be controlled this time of year with Trichlorfon (Dylox)  and carbaryl (Sevin).  Please read and follow label directions.  Watering the products in will increase efficacy and help grass roots begin to re-establish.  

If you had a large patch affected and you’re concerned about it coming back, you can always power-rake to remove the dead material and overseed to re-establish grass in that area.

For more information on different types of grubs, please see the following Blog post by my colleague Elizabeth Killinger.