Thanks Decklap, but there is no scouting to do now - if I had grubs last year (which I doubt since I had killed off my old lawn when they would have been feeding heavy and I don't think they would have made it - they should be gone and flying around by now anyway. Next opportunity for scouting would be early September, in which case, if I have them, I would need to use Dylox or something even worse, which I really don't want to do. I would rather use Imidacloprid as a preventative than Dylox for anything, for the sake of saving at least some of my earthworms. Joepyeweed, if I had never had a lawn completely destroyed by grubs I would give the nematodes a shot. I still may do so someday, but am just not there yet. The problems I have read about unreliable product/packaging/whatever are just too scary for me right now, with my brand new lawn and recent memories of massive grub damage.

Lou, I don't like Sevin either, or Dylox for that matter. But when the choice is grub poison or dead lawn, erosion over the winter, and start over next year, that is an easy choice. From a lawncare perspective, earthworm populations are irrelevant if the the lawn has been killed off by grubs. I have had massive grub damage in the past. In order to avoid the need to use those poisons I use imidacloprid as a preventative in early July. The stuff is much less harmful to earthworms than those others, but only works as a preventative. If you have never had massive grub damage you might not see the value in using that. But I do. Yes, milky spore (only for Japanese beetles, and only after a few seasons of application) and yes, nematodes (which are also specific to the actual beetles that happen to fly into your lawn). But my local extension office tells me that milky spore does not work well here, and I am not about to try netting and dissecting all of the beetles flying around in May and June in order to figure out which nematodes to buy. If you don't have a grub problem in your "organic" lawn, it is either because you are using a combination of milky spore and nematodes that luckily seem to be working against your particular pests, or you just don't have those pests - yet. But regardless it has nothing at all to do with fertilizing with grains, or brewing the perfect compost tea, or mowing high and mulching, or any other "organic" practice. Which I am sure are what you are about to suggest as grub control measures. I'm just saying that when folks here present real grub problems in spring or fall, you could at least recognize that the only solutions - at that point - are synthetic pesticides like Dylox and Sevin. Any other advice, again, at that point, will result in a dead lawn. You might also be up front about the difficulties in combining milky spore and nematodes in an effective way when you don't know exactly what sort of grubs you have, and of the seasons long delay in milky spore even becoming somewhat effective against even just the japanese beetle. /off soapbox Paul

Since nematodes and Milky Spore are expensive and you mentioned it was out of your range for a large lawn, I'd go with the grub killer. No, it's not organic. It's not an optimal solution. You know that already. I don't know how specific Merit is, but if it's a general insecticide you do run the risk of wiping out your micro-arthropods that happily do a good job keeping your lawn disease and fungus free. (Sometime, lookup the lowly fungus gnat...they're one of the most amazing and unconsidered creatures in our grass and gardens!) But if you gotta, you gotta. It's kind of early for the grubs to be back in Zone 5b (I'm a 5c/6a crossover). And when they do, they're third instar and about to become adults. There's no reason to try killing them now because it won't work very well. I'm not sure what the bag recommends, but the one time I was forced into using (gag) GrubX I applied it about two weeks before I expected to see the adults. The next year, no grub damage (on my parents' lawn at the time). Maybe you could start a small fund for next year for Milky Spore? It works fairly well in our colder climate--grubs counts on my current lawn and in the gardens were already dropping last fall and I expect far fewer still this year. Plus it lasts years until it micro-evolves to a less-killing genome. Then you just reapply.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Being organic is great, it's a goal for many of us. But don't lose your lawn just to stay organic - "here lies my organic dirt" just does not appeal to me. CGM does not help with fungus. You may be thinking about corn meal, the two are fairly different. There is much debate about cornmeal working for fungus. If your problem is indeed a fungus j4c11 usually recommends Heritage or Headway fungicide - I think, don't quote me on that (wait for his input).