- [Robbie] What about ye?
Robbie from Premier Lawns.
Premier Lawns is a lawn care service
based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
And in today's video, I'm gonna be talking about
leatherjackets, and the top five tips for controlling them.
In this video, I'll also be restoring the damage
done to this lawn from the leatherjackets.
You'd be surprised at how much havoc
something as small as leatherjackets can create.
(playful music)
For the last few weeks I've been doing
a couple of different videos on repairing their lawns.
One with soil and one with sand.
In this video we're gonna be repairing this lawn with soil,
but as I've done a video last week, or two weeks ago,
about renovating lawns, I would do another video
and I would talk about the leatherjackets
and the best way to control them,
and why they're in your lawn, and also my top five tips
on how to control them.
So let's begin, what is a leatherjacket?
A leatherjacket is the larvae stage
of the crane fly or daddy-long-legs.
So, all insects change in their lifetimes.
Bluebottles, for an example, are maggots
before they're flies, butterflies are caterpillars,
craneflies are leatherjackets.
We refer to these grubs as larvae,
and the job of the larvae is to eat, eat and more eat
before metamorphosing into an adult
who will mate, lay eggs, and the life cycle.
You're probably familiar with maggots.
They like to eat rotten rubbish.
Caterpillars are fussy eaters and, depending on species,
will stick to eating the leaves of one plant,
and boy do they eat a lot.
If you've ever had a cabbage patch raided by caterpillars,
you'll know how much they can put away in a day.
Leatherjackets feast on the roots of the grass plants,
which is why they're particularly
not welcomed by us lawn lovers.
So, what are the signs that you have
leatherjackets in your lawn?
If you look between August and April you'll probably
have no idea that there's leatherjackets in your lawn.
They're being underground, they're quietly chewing away
on the roots.
However they're tiny, so the amount
is easily replaced by another grass,
From late April through to early June
the beasts really start to grow,
and to do that they eat, they need to eat lots.
Your grass plants will be unable to grow roots fast enough.
You'll also see yellowing of the grass.
When you tug on the blades the plant will
literally come away from the soil very easily
and there'll be barely any roots on the plant.
If you see a lot of birds on the lawn
that's another pretty good clue
as there's a lot of birds pecking away at the,
there's something there that they want to eat.
So, the lifecycle of leatherjackets.
An adult cranefly emerges from the ground in the summertime,
and it'll usually mate, lay eggs and die within 48 hours.
The female likes to lay the eggs in lawns.
She will lay up to 300 eggs, and these hatch,
grubs within 10 to 15 days later.
The grubs have a four-stage lifecycle.
The larvae grow fast in the autumn,
slower in the winter, and faster again in spring.
When the soil warms up they feed really fast
on the roots, and that's when you see the most damage.
In and around May the grubs will stop eating.
They pupate, and they emerge from their burrows
in summertime, as craneflies.
Interrupting the lifecycle to minimize damage.
There are currently no chemical controls
to kill off leatherjackets, so as lawn lovers
we're limited to two different types of treatment.
A biological treatment, and disturbing
their lifecycle so we limit their lives.
Biological controls, nematodes.
The soil beneath your lawn is like a very busy city.
It's teeming with all sorts of lifeforms.
Amongst those creatures are good microbes
that help the plants survive, and nasties
that can cause problems for us
whenever they get out of control.
It's really a dog-eat-dog world down there, and there's some
goodies and there's some baddies and vice versa.
Amongst the population are very small worms
known as nematodes.
These little fellas, they have an appetite
for leatherjackets, they climb inside them,
they release their bacteria and they kill the host.
It's pretty gruesome but it works to our advantage.
If, in the course of caring for your lawn
and you suspect that leatherjackets are lurking,
you can treat them with nematodes.
Now this sounds ideal, but there's a but
and it's a really big but.
The nematodes work best in warm, moist soil, and usually
whenever the leatherjackets are at their smallest.
If the conditions are wrong at all they just don't work,
and it can be really frustrating.
Here's my top five tips for dealing with the leatherjackets.
This is a regular maintenance plan
which becomes super-important if you see
lots of daddy-long-legs in your garden,
or you've been away on holidays
and you suspect they've visited while you've been away.
Tip number one, scarify to remove any eggs or larvae
that are lurking in the thatch layer.
Tip number two, aerate to thoroughly
disturb the soil and improve the drainage.
Tip number three, if you're confident
that the soil temperature will stay above 12 degrees
for the next four to five weeks, apply the nematodes.
Tip number four, make sure that your lawn has a really
good feed in early autumn, and another one in mid-winter.
It's vital that you keep those roots strong enough
and vigorous to outgrow any damage.
Tip number five, keep an eye out for any signs
that you might have leatherjackets in your lawn.
So these would be yellowing grass,
or lots of activity from the birds.
As I've said in the past, it can be really frustrating
and hard to make sure that the nematodes work.
It's recommended that you put them on in wet conditions,
or water the lawn beforehand, put them on,
and then water the lawn afterwards.
As they're a living thing you need to make sure
that the spray is really clean before you spray them on.
You could put them on with a watering can,
but make sure it's really clean.
And it's vital to make sure that the lawn stays watered
for the next week to really help soak them down.
There's other things to consider.
If you put them on on a sunny day, they don't like UV light.
I wouldn't use any wet needs inside there
to soak them down in.
So if you're finding this video helpful
it's really good if you could smash that like button for me,
and subscribe to the channel for more videos.
If you hit the like button it really, really helps me out.
So before I come to the end of this video,
there's a few other products that you can try.
Now, I say that you have to try these at your own risk,
and they may not work for you.
There's a product called Rigel-G.
It's an organic garlic nutrient and plant biostimulant.
It's basically made of garlic and the grubs don't like it,
and it forces them back down into the soil.
I figure the Greenkeepers Association has been carrying out
some research on this as far as I know.
And some greenkeepers have been,
pure neem oil, unrefined and cold-pressed.
So neem oil could be used on dogs and horses
for fleas and tick and mite control,
and it's an excellent parasite.
Lastly beer, now stick with me on this one.
Beer has been reported to work, as the yeast content
in the beer kills off the grubs.
Though I'm sure if you put it on
it'll make the grass come up half-cut.
Now I have some links down into the description
for these products, if you want
to buy them and try them yourself.
Again I must say, use them at your own risk.
(upbeat music)
Products we used, the seed on this lawn
was Barenbrug E7, that's a sport's rye.
So the benefits of using this grass seed.
100% perennial ryegrass, rapid germination.
Really good recovery from wear.
It's a great option for this lawn,
as the homeowner has young kids
and the grass'll wear really well.
The soil that we used, it's a specialist soil
that we buy from one of my suppliers.
It's an enriched topsoil that we use for smaller lawns
where we we can't get, there'd be no point buying
a big ton bag of 70:30 for a lawn.
And we also treated the lawn with fertilizer
then sprayed on the seaweed.
So again, if you've enjoyed this video
please smash that like button,
it really really helps me out.
And this here is the lawn all finished off.
You can see it all matted in, ready for growth.
So I came back three weeks later for a look
and really happy with how the lawn's progressed.
You can see all the new grass seeds coming up
and the lawn's doing really well.
Again, we'll probably be applying some nematodes
later on in the year for this lawn.
Listen, thanks very much for watching,
and we'll see you in the next video.
Again, just smash that like button.
(upbeat music)