October is also the recommended timing for an Acelepryn intervention to control leatherjackets (late October – around 20th).
Having spent their life grazing on turf roots and shoots, they by now, are pretty cooked.
Most will be done with feeding and have checked off that final weight gain, which will allow them enough energy to transform not into a beautiful butterfly unfortunately, but a pesky crane fly.
I dug some late stage leatherjackets up the other day, you can see compared to the dandelion flower they are as big as they will be growing.
The reason for this, as with chafers is they need to allow a little “wiggle room” for the others to get to the same stage and be ready to all fly together.
If every crane fly or chafer flew when they were ready throughout the year they would get eaten by birds or bats long before they found a mate.
The idea behind their strategy is to all fly in a relatively short window so most get missed by predators and their are lots of mates available.
Cast skins
In short height of cut turf you’ll be able to see the tell tell signs of emerged crane fly.
The skins which served them so well as leatherjackets and pupae are often left sticking out of the sward as they work to wriggle out, and fly away for a new life.
These left over cast skins are a great way to see what the population levels are like in your turf.
Watch out for them between now and October with the highest numbers expected through September.
A severe day below, you’d expect the mower to collect more insect protein than clippings on that cut.
The order window for the LTAP strategy for leatherjacket control closes 5th September. So if you are interested speak to your distributor/dealer ASAP.
If you need more consistent control going into next year then the integrated strategy of Acelepryn followed by Nematrident within a week consistently delivers above that of Acelepryn alone, and so makes a great option.
If you haven’t seen the report put together from all the PestTracker data you can find that here. Great way to get the picture of the peak flight timings if you need that to communicate to membership.
