ravens attacking lawn and leaving patches

[simon garfield]

first off i am new here so hi to all.

I have a question that i hope some of you might be able to help with over the past few days, it looks like ravens, have been attacking m lawn leaving hugh patches of grass torn up and scatered all over th place. I believe this is because they are after grubs of some sort.

My question is does anyone know of a way to prevent this happening, an what would be the best course of action to replace the bare patches reseed or place turf in the holes as some are at least 90 sqr cm.

hi to all again and hope to hear from yo

-- simon garfield

[trader4]

Having animals tear up turf is indeed a classic sign of grubs. If you want to kill the grubs now, per Steveo's advice, Dylox is the recommended agent. Next year, apply one of the season long grub controls. Or if you want to go the organic route, you can try nematodes, though I think they take a couple seasons to be effective.

and

Impossible to answer without knowing climate where you're located or how many of these spots you have covering what size area, etc. Guessing and it sounds like you're in the UK, so you probably can still seed. Normally, I'd use a slice seeder for any larger work, but if the turf has limited roots, that would probably do more damage to the grass that's left, so I'd probably do it by hand.

[do_see]

But then aren't you poisoning the crows too?

[Helen R]

Hi Simon

The ravens are most likely to be digging for 'chafer grubs

or 'leatherjackets (daddy long legs grubs). You can trea before the end of october with a nematode which will usually kill th grubs within 2 or 3 weeks. You may need to retreat next season as well

The damage can be repaired either with turf or by overseeding. See will still germinate before winter, but if the temperatures ar consistently below 12 degrees C then you'd be best waiting until sprin to overseed

-- Helen R

[Eggs Zachtly]

No.

[trader4]

I'm no expert on using nematodes to kill grubs, but from what I think is correct, I see a couple of problems with this.

Nematodes are most effective when the grubs are still very small, which would have been a couple months ago, like Jul/Aug. Second, if he's having extensive turf damage from animals right now, he's looking at 2-3 weeks of more damage, unitl the nematodes work, if they will work at all this late in season. While I think nematodes can be fine for prevention, I think at this stage, he needs something quick and powerful, ie insecticide.

[simon garfield]

thanks for some very good advice, you have given me somewhere to start

lets hope we can solve this

-- simon garfield