Can You Hear The Drum Beats Of The Lawn Army Worms?

They are on their way to a lawn near you, or maybe even feasting on your lawn. So, what do you do when they arrive?

The first sign of army worms is the apparent damage they do to your lawn. In effect, they eat the leaf of your lawn to the stem - that is, these army worms, and for that matter, sod web worms (another lawn foraging caterpillar), feed on the lawn and the damage caused is similar to a very badly cut lawn. Basically, it would appear your lawn / grass has been badly scalped.

The trick in reviving your lawn is to act quickly. Two (2) critical steps need to be implemented, that is, to arrest the offending army worms with a safe and effective insect control and then to quickly fertilise the damaged areas.

All the above needs to be done as soon as possible as the army worms wreak their havoc in the early Autumn period as the days are becoming a little cooler. By acting quickly with the fertiliser, we hope to have some remaining warm weather to allow the turf to recover to its prior glory.

Broadly, there are two (2) ways to attack the lawn army worm and sod web worm. You will need to control these lawn insect pests with a safe and effective insecticide. Insecticides for lawn insects can be purchased from your local hardware or garden store. These insecticides are available in liquid form or in granular form.

The liquid insecticides need to be applied in early evening as they are photo-degradable (that is, the liquid insecticide breaks down in sunlight).

The granular insecticides, however, can be applied any time as they not affected by sunlight (that is, not photo-degradable). The granular insecticide is an insecticide that is coated around the carrier agent (the carrier being sand, and in some products the carrier is granular fertiliser). Therefore, you need to water in the granules to activate the insecticide.

The granular insecticide can be applied at a heavier rate to give longer (residual) control thereby ensuring a complete knockdown of the existing insect population and its life cycle. So for these (and safety) reasons we favour the use of granular insecticides over the liquid alternatives.