I read the A&M link. It wouldn't be the first time A&M was wrong about something. Plus they're about as Agri-business as you can get. Their testing of organic methods is often suspect. Their conclusion about the ineffectiveness of Milky Spore could be simply because they didn't account for it's 2-3 year establishment time. I have no proof about the effectiveness of Milky Spore. I applied it at the proper time according to instructions about 25 years ago. I haven't had noticeable grub damage in my lawn since then. Maybe it's luck, or it's attributable to other factors or methods. A few of those years I treated the lawn for fleas, but most years not. I live in South Texas with alkaline clay soil. The only thing milky spore or lawn insecticide treatments can be expected to do is to kill the larvae in the soil. The adults are not feeding when you see them bouncing off your exterior lights or your forehead. They lay their eggs and then die. The prime time to treat them is as soon as you stop seeing them around your outdoor lights. They've laid their eggs and died. The larvae are near the surface, small, and tender. When I dig in my yard, I often see a few grubs. The thing to remember is that, regardless of what control method you use, you can never kill them all. The only time you won't see grubs is when they turn into adults and come out of the ground to fly around bouncing off of things till they lay eggs and die. rangier

Steamy: How are you keeping BSF larvae in your bin this time of year. I have not seen a single one outside this year yet. Last year I kept a bin of them to see how they would do and they started to turn black and get active. I was told that at that stage they pretty much quit eating and were looking for a place to pupate. I was looking for a way to retard the pupation by keeping them together but it did not seem to work. Suzanna: In answer to the question you posed, I have a bin of E hortensis (european night crawlers) that has apparently been 'contaminated with some red wigglers. They get along fine but I'm thinking of trying to separate as I'm a little of a purist and would like a bin of 'fishing' worms. I do not see any competition of the 2 species but that is because all my worms are raised in the same environment (inside the house). I think where you see one species do better is at the outside of their respective temperature ranges.

I have never heard grubs called good before. They feed off roots, your lawn roots or roots of other plants. They attract undesirable critters. Your lawn can "withstand" a certain number of grubs, that does not mean its good for the lawn. The hatched beetles eat leaves of plants. I have never seen mine eat tomato leaves but they will migrate on your property and choose plants they like an do damage to those. Personally, I kill any I find. I have Japanese, Oriental and Asiatic. I hate every one of them. If they are not munching the lawn as grubs they are decimating my basil, eating my flowers, or making plants leaves look a mess, and even eating enough of the leaves to damage the plants. Mine love my roses and basil the most. That said, they will not hurt your tomato plants. But they certainly don't do any "Good". Worms are good. Great in fact. But not grubs. It would take a lot to change my mind about that, lol.

I have them in my yard here in Camp Verde Arizona. They will eat the feeder roots on anything. If you get enough of them they will kill a rose or any other type of plant. They will even eat bulbs. I use 7 granules and then water it in. Mine are from June bugs.