Home & Garden Tips
Controlling Mole Crickets
By Roosevelt McWilliams County Extension Agent

It is not uncommon for mole crickets to destroy a lawn in one season. The pesky insects damage

turf grasses in the coastal plain and occasionally in piedmont areas of Georgia. They're active

from

early spring to late fall. They damage the turf most in late summer and early fall.

The best time to treat is around the first week in July, when all of the season's eggs have hatched but the nymphs are still too small to do much damage. Mole crickets spend the winter mostly as adults in the soil. As the weather warms, adults emerge and begin to feed and mate, beginning in March and continuing into May and June.

Mole crickets lay egg in the soil, mostly in April and May. A single female may lay as many as six or eight clutches of about 40 eggs per clutch. In three to six weeks the eggs hatch into nymphs that look much like adults but are smaller and don't have wings. Nymphs grow all summer and change into adults in the fall.

Mole crickets damage turf both by tunneling and by feeding on the grass. At low infestation levels, tunneling is probably the more damaging, particularly in newly seeded areas.

With higher infestations, mole crickets will eat the grass and leave the soil pulverized and spongy to the step. Although adults can do considerable damage in the spring, the most serious injury usually occurs late in the season (August to October) when nymphs are large and active.

Ordinarily the hatch is almost complete around the third or fourth week in June. By early July, all the eggs should have hatched into nymphs. That's when an insecticide treatment can be used.

Orthene is the best choice in July, mainly because it's available and you don't have to water it in. Homeowners don't have many insecticide options. You should irrigate before you apply insecticide sprays or granules if the soil is dry. Treat the area as late in the afternoon as you can.

Baits are best used later in the summer or early in the fall because they work better when the nymphs are bigger. An advantage to bait is that you don't have to water them in. For best results apply baits near dusk.

You can find out how many mole crickets you have, with a detergent solution. Dissolve one ounce of liquid detergent in two gallons of water and pour over about nine square feet. You should then count the number of mole crickets that emerge.

Repeat the process around the yard. A rule of thumb is that if you flush an average of more than five crickets per site, treat the lawn with an insecticide. This can vary.

It really depends on how healthy your lawn turf is and what demands you place on it. If you take really good care of it and just look at it, the turf can stand a lot of mole crickets and stay healthy.