Grubs from Hell

I grow hops in planters. I have some second years, and some first years.

Problem is, one of my second year cascades started "losing" its bines. They just started to separate from the underground crown and then the leaves would wither and die. The strange part is that this was only happening to one of my Cascades... the others are still growing like wild. When the last bine finally separated and died I decided to have a look.

Well, what I found was a ****load of grubs. They were as thick as my pinky, and a little over half as long.



I looked on the google, and found that they're probably stag beetle larvae or something similar. I found about 15-20 of them and chucked them out of my yard in rage...

BUT, did these things actually kill the hops? Do beetle larvae eat roots underground? If so, how can I treat my potting soil so they won't grow next year? I'd REALLY hate to lose a 3rd year plant next year cause of these things.

stag larvae are only suppose to eat decaying material...but these may not be stag larvea, anyway i would suggest Sevin or Grub-X if you are ok with chemicals (being this far away from harvest you should be OK) but if you like the organic thing there are predatory nematodes that will eat them. Grubs in general are bad and killed on sight.

from my lawn care and college training, i'll send you a tid-bit! to determine what the grub will turn into when it becomes an adult is to look at the rastral pattern. this is a bunch of nubs, kinda like a 5-o'clock shadow, on the rear end of the grub. each species will have a definite pattern if you look with a 10 x hand magnifier. i'm not a normal person, and that is why i know these kind of things. have a beer, and figure out another place to grow your hops. you will succeed! and remember to b-hoppy!

Another place to grow? They're in containers, so I'm a bit stuck there Anyway, the hops may have been rotting from overwatering or some such before the beetle grubs came in... who knows?

I wouldn't really mind using chemicals... Nice to know there are things like that, though. I'm in Japan so the brands available will no doubt be different, but hopefully they'll have something similar available.

what i was getting at is that you could take them out of the containers and plant them right into mother earth. she has all kinds of ways and means to take care of grub problems. checks and balances that may not be present in a container system! like xm said earlier, a lot of grubs zero in on large deposits of decaying organic matter so there may have been something in the soil in the containers to have attracted the adults to lay the eggs there? you can grow yours any way you like but i'm sticking to mother earth and think i'll have that beer now.

another effective but kind of off the wall method I will tell you is to completely sterilize the soil. once its dried out put it on a tray or somthing and throw it in the oven around the 300F range for a about 10 min per tray, but keep in mind that this kills off both good and bad bacteria and dont do this for to long. once this is done put your soil in your container. the soil is sterilized and dehydrated so re hydrate and you may want to add in some nutrients that are steady release for the season.

Good advice... I wish I could put them right into the ground, but my "yard" is on rented property where they decided for whatever reason to cover everything in concrete. Planters are my only way to go for the time being

Luckily, it was just one planter as of yet, but I ought to be careful next year. It costs so much to get rhizomes shipped over here that I need to make sure my estblished plants, at least, stay alive.

Here you go, Wankboi...

http://www.bayeradvanced.com/insects-pests/products/24-hour-grub-killer-plus