LawnSuite guide: Curl grubs in lawns: the carpet-lift test and timing
Use this LawnSuite guide to recognise the problem before deciding what to do. Curl grubs are beetle larvae that live in the soil and eat the roots. The damage looks like a lawn dying of thirst, until you lift the turf and find there are no roots left.
How to spot it
Patches go straw-brown fast and the turf feels spongy. The giveaway: dead sections lift like a piece of carpet, because the roots are gone. Birds digging at the lawn is another hint.
Confirm it at home
Grab a handful of affected grass near the soil and pull straight up. If it lifts like a carpet with almost no roots, cut a 30 cm square and flip it. Fat, white, C-shaped grubs in the root zone confirm it.
What they are
Curl grubs are the larvae of several scarab beetles, including African black beetle. Different species run on different regional cycles.
When they're active
Curl grubs hatch at different times depending on the beetle species and your region, often from late spring into early summer. By the time the carpet-lift damage shows, the grubs have usually been feeding in the root zone for a while.
Your grass type
In kikuyu, a dense sward can hide the early damage, so look closely.
If you use a product
Confirm the grubs first. Then use an insecticide whose label lists the pest and your turf type, and follow the label, including when it says to apply.
Keep reading
Not sure it's curl grub?
Create a free LawnSuite account in your browser and photograph the patch. Photo diagnosis uses Google Gemini vision to identify the likely weed, pest or disease and shows a confidence score for each result, so you can match it to the signs on this page before you treat.