Grey grubs in soil

[justin1287]

The house I moved into had a problem with grubs last summer. There are piles of dirt that I want to use that have grubs in them. From my research, it appears that these grubs will turn into beetles soon and leave the soil and not cause a lot of immediate probplems. But, they will leave the soil and mate and lay eggs. The people that lived here before....they got grubs from amending the dirt with horse manure. I guess beetles like to lay their eggs in that type of medium. It looks like the main damage from grubs is after the eggs are laid because they need to eat lots of roots to grow. I was wondering if there is a way to prevent the beetles laying their eggs on soil that smells of horse manure? Thanks!

 

[Chuck]

The house I moved into had a problem with grubs last summer. There are piles of dirt that I want to use that have grubs in them. From my research, it appears that these grubs will turn into beetles soon and leave the soil and not cause a lot of immediate probplems. But, they will leave the soil and mate and lay eggs. The people that lived here before....they got grubs from amending the dirt with horse manure. I guess beetles like to lay their eggs in that type of medium. It looks like the main damage from grubs is after the eggs are laid because they need to eat lots of roots to grow. I was wondering if there is a way to prevent the beetles laying their eggs on soil that smells of horse manure? Thanks!

Grubs such as the larvae of the June Beetle eat living plant roots. The grubs that one sees in a compost/manure pile are the beneficial larvae of the Rhinoceros beetle. They look very much like the June bug larvae except they grow to a very large size, about the size of you entire thumb. When they are young they do not have a reddish brown head and are grayish all over whereas the June bug larvae, even when young have a reddish brown head. These Rhinoceros beetles are great to have in your soil as they help decompose the organic matter in your soil thus enabling your plants to uptake the nutrients which the decomposed organic matter provides. All grubs are not bad especially the Rhinoseros beetle grubs.

 

[justin1287]

Do you know if they have those in the United States? I'm in Colorado. Thanks!

 

[justin1287]

I'm pretty sure they are june bug larvae. They look like this: http://allofnature.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-bug-larvae-demo-insect-breathing.html

 

[Chuck]

I'm pretty sure they are june bug larvae. They look like this: http://allofnature.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-bug-larvae-demo-insect-breathing.html

RB's are all over the world, some are slightly different than others. If there are not any living plants where these grubs are you can be 99% sure they are RB's. Also, how big are these grubs you are seeing? Just day before yesterday I was digging in my compost pile and found a bunch of them. They were babies about 1 1/4" long or about as big as a full grown June bug larvae