Some lawn care companies are now telling customers that they need an application of imidicloprid or some other pesticide to kill grubs in their lawn. First, it is worth asking: have they actually scouted for grubs? and if they have found them, have grubs exceeded the economic threshold? If they don't know what you're talking about, they are stuck in a 1960s style calendar-type spray mode and don't know the principles of Integrated Pest Management, or IPM. You might want to find another, more up-to-date provider.
Second, there is a USDA developed alternative to yearly pesticide application for grub control, which won't negatively impact beneficial insects or bird life. It is milky spore disease, a disease that infects the Japanese Beetle grub -- the number one problem grub in our area, according to Mitch Baker at American Plant Food. The infected grub dies, and spreads the disease spores out for other grubs to contact it. Milky spore gets established under the turf roots and lasts 10-15 years--years that you don't have to pay for a grubicide. Why won't lawn spray companies tell you about it? It eliminates an income stream for them, so they might say that milky spore doesn't work. American Plant Food sells both grubicides and milky spore, but Baker recommends milky spore, even if it reduces sales of pesticides, because it is better, and harms nothing else in the soil.
Mark Twain said, if your only tool is a hammer, all your problem look like nails. If your only tools come out of a nozzle, that's what you'll use. We ought to be smarter than that in 2007.
Click here to read the Biopestman's previous articles about keeping pests out of your home. Alan Cohen, the MPN Biopestman, is president of Bio-Logical Pest Management based in Washington, DC.