Someone told me that I had too many worms in my lawn and this was a sign of something negative. (I can't remember what) Can anyone enlighten me. I always thought worms were a good thing. Thanks
They're probably talking about European cranefly larvae. More than 25/per sq. ft. indicates you have enough to begin pesiticide applications, if so inclined.
No, these are run of the mill, good for fishing bait, lovely to see in the compost, type worms. Just thought I would check, thanks, now if I could do something about the european chafers. thanks
Worms being earthworms which are purple-red-pink shades and may be several inches long, many segments, with one segment (about 1/3 from one end) being 2 to 4 times the length of the other segments: desirable. Euro cranefly larvae sometimes called cutworms (but perhaps not correctly?) are 1 to 1 1/4" long, blunt ended and grey tones: bad news. Ralph
Cranefly larvae are leatherjackets, cutworms are caterpillars. Lawns that have enough craneflies to get eaten up are probably too damp anyway, really need to have the irrigation/drainage corrected.
thank you for identifying the other pest in my lawn, the cranefly. I knew that they weren't cut worms. My lawn doesn't have a drainage problem, but last year when I was trying to get rid of the chafers, it was suggested that I flood the lawn, to get the chafers to the surface before I used Sevin. So it sounds like I made the area ideal for cranefly. My lawn is healthy, I aerate and fertilize, leave the turf a bit longer, but still seem to be having problems.
