In the 1930s, Japanese beetles demolished ornamental plants and crops across the United States, so much so that a solution was needed on a national scale. Let’s explore that! What Is Milky Spore Powder? Milky spore powder or granules have been in use for about eighty years. Thanks for everyone's help and hopefully I can report back next season and find some milky grubs underneath the soil.But what exactly is milky spore, and what is the best way to apply milky spore? Is it a specific organic control, or does it affect other animals as many other insecticides do? What are the advantages and trade-offs of using milky spore in your garden and lawn? I had read a lot of bad things about the overpriced and junk applicator so the hand method was definitely more back-breaking and time-consuming. You get a bit of loss when the water first hits the spots and it goes into the air but I'm assuming it's a very small percentage.Īll in all it was an easy but somewhat tedious job. I put the teaspoons of powder evenly spaced out with the guide and then hand-watered the lawn focusing on the white spots until they were gone. Grabbed an old plastic teaspoon measuring spoon and a 3 1/2ft section of gutter to use as a guide. I wear glasses but didn't put on sealed goggles, so made sure to stay upwind at all times. I figure the main danger (even though non-toxic supposedly) is inhalation but other than that I wanted to be able to hose off and contaminate the least amount of clothing (I have a wife and 2 kids, one is a 2-month old). I stripped down to my shorts and wore flip-flops, put on some gloves and wore a dust-mask. We've had almost no rain and there is none in the forecast for the next week and it's the perfect time of year for this application. So I ended up doing the application tonight. The only thing I can reason is until many grubs are killed by the milky spore it requires very high initial concentrations of the spore in the grub to turn deadly.but that doesn't jive with my knowledge of how this treatment works. Has anyone thought to kind of shake the teaspoon in the area to better cover rather than very concentrated dots? Reason being you end up having very concentrated dots all over your lawn but total coverage of only a fraction of the total percentage. Both the applicator (which I hear is a piece of junk and not worth the money) and the normal method of 1tsp or so per 4 feet just seems kind of dumb. The only thing I find odd is the application method for the powder. This is overkill for my lawn (I don't care much about the actual japanese beetle issue, since it would require everyone in our area to use the powder, rather just that my lawn itself is mostly free of munching grubs. I ended up grabbing a 2.5lb bag on Amazon for ~$70 with shipping. You are right the 2 main methods of application are powder and granule, and you are also right (ended up spending a couple hours Googling) that the powder seems to be the most recommended and effective. Whoops, looks like I was confusing my beneficial nematodes with milky spore. So my question is is this going to be as effective when watered in as the more expensive and less convenient sponge that I've read all about? It was about $40 which would be MUCH cheaper if I can get multiple uses out of it than the sponge/liquid version. Gabriel Laboratories and seems legit (0.2% spore concentration with the rest inert stuff for even spreading). which would give me several years of applications (since I know it can take 2-3 years for maximum effectiveness). I was all set on ordering from a biological supply company and buying the sponge that you squeeze into water and apply when I was renting a U-haul today and saw in the grub/fertilizer isle at a local ACE hardware a 20lb bag of milky spore that is sold in the consistency of a starter fertilizer. I've had some massive grub damage (last year my lawn rolled up like a carpet and there were tons of white grubs when I dug into the soil), and would like to try the "organic" way first. I have been planning on an application of milky spore and now is just about the right time.
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