GRUBS!?!?!?!

[Aji hombre]

Yeah BSF are on my radar for this summer, Petco sells them as reptile food! I may go buy some around the end of March. We should be sitting in the 80-90s by then. I decided to keep the Grubs in a 5gal with some composting table scraps. I'll just kill them when the are in Pupa/Beetle stage. I have to know if Grub casting are any good, just so I can say "I tried that."

My Meal worms are finally in Beetle stage, so hopefully they lay eggs so I can get some Frass from them, as well as food for our Bearded Dragon.

Here's a thought for an experiment-- I might try this with a few potted plants. Grow half with some fig beetle larvae tooling around in the pot and some without. I'd like to assess how much damage the larvae actually cause. The problem I see, though is being confident that I have a fig beetle larva vs. one of those more known to be herbivores. Did you come across any grubs (with spots) that could be mistaken for fig beetle larvae?

 

[Cayennemist]

Here's a thought for an experiment-- I might try this with a few potted plants. Grow half with some fig beetle larvae tooling around in the pot and some without. I'd like to assess how much damage the larvae actually cause. The problem I see, though is being confident that I have a fig beetle larva vs. one of those more known to be herbivores. Did you come across any grubs (with spots) that could be mistaken for fig beetle larvae?

That's what they are. Green June beetle are more commonly known as Fig Beetles. <-- found that out yesterday
I guess they do eat roots, especially with some types fruit trees. These guys are attracted to the smell of rotting organic matter.

Funny thing is, I don't think my compost attracted them, I think I brought them in. Apparently they have a thing for lawns, well I fill my compost with lawn clippings from my condo complex. I think the eggs piggy backed in with the lawn clippings. To further my hypothesis, I have not found any in the plants I 86ed from last year (about 30Gal or so). I am going to Sift my entire bin tonight to start getting bigger pots ready for some of my plants. I'm sure I will find about a dozen or more of these guys. Time to see how much they can compost!

 

[Aji hombre]

Come to think of it, these pots that I'm finding grubs in now are the pots that I transferred plants to from the soil. I used a lot of compost in the mix I put them in, so there might have been some larvae that got thrown in with the plants I was trying to overwinter. I'm finding that quite a few are dying--I thought it was the aftereffects of the cold snap, but maybe it's the beetles, too!

After a plant goes dead in my overwinter pots, I flip over the pot and let the chickens scratch up whatever they can find. I can tell when they find a big grub by the way they run away to eat it without competition. The dead-plant pots have grubs in them. Eh--maybe I'll nix the experiment and just convert all the grubs I find into fresh eggs.