Mole Crickets... Again!!

In a earlier post I explained how mole crickets are a major pest that impact golf courses and landscapes in the coastal south east.  They are interesting looking bugs that are extremely powerful for their size and have the potential to cause serious damage to turf if not kept in check.  I continued to monitor eggs through the first couple of weeks in June until one day I was checking for adults and found babies!!

We found these suckers on a Wednesday and went out the following Monday June 9th with our .2% Merit (imidicloprid) on a 20-0-5 fertilizer.  We applied the fertalizer at a rate of 200 pounds per acre. That gave us .4 lbs of Merit per acre as well as just under 1 pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet or 40 pounds of nitrogen per acre. Luckily we were able to treat the entire golf course (75 acres) in one day by utilizing two tractor mounted Lely spreaders. 

We marked our calenders and came back two weeks later with a follow up application of 0-0-22 with .1% Bifenthrin at a rate of 200 pounds per acre. That gave us .2 pounds of active ingredient per acre.  This application did not go as smoothly as the previous Merit application. Our backs were against the wall because the golf course was open on Monday June 23 for a senior event that was a 9 a.m. shotgun on all 18 holes.  We didn't start putting our product out until a little after 3 p.m. and were racing against looming thunderstorms and running out of daylight.  We were also operating with only one spreader this time because our other spreader operator was out that day. Long story short we did holes 14-18 on Monday June 23, holes 1-8 on Wednesday June 25 and finished up holes 9-13 and the driving range this past Monday June 30.  So far we have not noticed any more mole cricket activity since our last treatment.