Insecticide For New Sod

1. Pesticides are often harsh on your grass and environmentally unfriendly, so restricting the use of them unless your grass desperately needs their help is the best strategy. The University of California’s Integrated Pest Management program suggests only using pesticides if you encounter the following number of pests within a given area: five armyworms or cutworms per square yard, one billbug or its larvae per square foot, 40 black turfgrass ataenius or their larvae per square foot, six white grubs per square foot, 15 lawn moths or their larvae per square yard and 135 southern chinch bugs per square yard. Unless the presence of firefly skippers exceeds 15 per square yard, and they’re damaging your yard — via chewing the grass and creating small splotches of browning grass — there’s no need to implement control methods to counter them. One square yard is nine square feet, so check your yard in multiple locations for the pests.

Insecticides

1. Bacillus thuringiensis, imidacloprid, azadirachtin and pyrethrin serve as the four primary insecticides effective against sod pests. Bacillus thuringiensis is by far the least harmful, but only works against armyworms and cutworms. When applied to the soil, the pests eat the bacterium and die within days. It’s very effective against young armyworms and cutworms, but less so against mature ones. Azadirachtin is the second safest and kills armyworms, cutworms and lawn moth larvae. It’s somewhat toxic to bees and harmful to aquatic life if washed into waterways. It serves as a growth disruptor, killing affected pests within a week. Pyrethrin is the second most harmful insecticide on the list, but kills southern chinch bugs, armyworms, cutworms, fiery skippers and lawn moths. It’s somewhat toxic to honeybees and highly toxic to aquatic life. Imidacloprid takes the crown as the most toxic insecticide on the list, as it’s extremely dangerous to both bees and natural predators of various insects. It slowly kills pests by first paralyzing them. White grubs, black turfgrass ataenius larvae and billbugs all fall victim to the insecticide. In addition to insecticides, parasitic nematodes also take care of many harmful pests.