When the June beetles are in their peak season, it is a true natural spectacle. The interesting beetles fly around everywhere and especially delight the children. Others see them as a nuisance and would like to get rid of them immediately. And although the damage caused by this garden visitor is not too great, and it is also a good source of food for birds, moles, hedgehogs, etc., you can do something to reduce its population for the coming year. We explain to you how you can fight June beetles.
Why the beetle isn't really harmful, but the larvae are
The ribbed curlew beetle or summer beetle, as it is also called, usually only becomes a nuisance because it often gets caught in your hair or clothing during its flight maneuvers. And most people just don't like insects. However, it does not cause any major or long-term damage to the garden itself. The beetles feed primarily on the leaves of fruit trees. This causes them to be easily damaged and visually less attractive, but the insects only live for a very short time (males die immediately after fertilization, females after laying their eggs), so the plants can recover quickly and your harvest is not affected.
The June beetle larvae are more harmfulEngerling nennt. The June beetle larva is dangerous because it feeds on the roots and tubers of plants and does so so successfully that the garden plants ultimately die. They not only attack crops, but also ornamental plants and even the lawn. Therefore, it is not only worth taking preventative measures. You can also fight the June beetle with home remedies.
Notice: Many people confuse the summer beetle with thisMay beetle in the garden, as they are visually very similar. However, cockchafers are significantly larger and have a brown color in contrast to the ocher curlew beetle.
Fight June beetles with home remedies
The bad news is that there are no home remedies in the sense of products from the kitchen or herb garden that you likewith mosquitoes, for example, against which pests can use. However, you will find what you are looking for in stores and without any chemical products that would also harm the beneficial microorganisms. We explain what you can do.
Take action against the grubs with beneficial insects
So-called nematodes are extremely helpful in the fight against a wide variety of pests. These are nematodes that penetrate the inside of your victim (in our case the grubs) and feed on them from the inside. The larvae are killed in a short time. If you want to fight the June beetle, this genus is particularly recommendedHeterorhabditis bacteriophora, which will also eliminate other harmful larvae at the same time. After youBuy nematodes, deploy them in the following way:
- Once you have identified grubs
- Only in the morning or evening when the light is no longer so strong
- Apply nematodes with the irrigation water
- From a ground temperature of 12 degrees
- Keep the soil moist during this time
Protect lawns from infestation
To avoid dry patches as a result of the voracious grubs, you should ensure that the beetles have a hard time laying their eggs in the ground in the first place. For this purpose it must be solid. How do you achieve this? Quite simplythe right care! If you mow and fertilize the grass regularly, it can form a solid turf that June beetles have difficulty penetrating. You can further support this effect of correct lawn care by never mowing the lawn too short.
Fighting June beetles – tillage as a last resort
If the methods mentioned above have not worked, you can also resort to a more radical variant. The garden soil can be worked deep with a milling machine. This is especially necessary if, for example, your property is on the outskirts of town and even wild boars are attracted to the garden, for whom the grubs are a real delicacy. So instead of letting wild boars devastate your beds and lawns again and again or losing valuable plants to the larvae every year, you can use a tiller.
To get the larvae out, you should dig the soil to a depth of about 10 centimeters. However, keep in mind that you could also kill or at least disturb other living beings in this way. In addition, you are changing the soil structure and it will take some time for it to recover.
Ribbed curlew beetle in a pot?
Have you discovered a grub in a flower pot? It may well be that these are not June beetle larvae at all. It isnamely the rose beetle, which likes to lay its eggs in plant containers. In this case, you don't have to worry because, unlike the June beetle larvae, those of the rose beetle do not feed on the living roots of the plant, but rather on dead parts of the plant, although they can also damage the healthy roots in the process.
In this case, make sure that the soil is not too moist, as the rose beetle larvae love this and it makes them a preferred place to lay their eggs. You can also try a diversionary maneuver: press pieces of rotten wood into the ground, as the beetle larvae will definitely prefer these to the roots. If it really is a June beetle grub, you can plant out the plant, remove the larvae and plant the plant in new soil.
