If they're only in the compost, they belong there; they're part of nature's composting crew.

Soil is living, and earthworms, bacteria, microorganisms, etc., create and maintain the soil, keeping it lively.

When I find the grubs, which seem to multiply after applying compost, I pick them out gently, and when I am through working my soil, I replace them back, and they crawl deep into the soil, out of sight.

I don't know what they are, but for some reason, I feel they are a positive for soil. I would like to know what they are and what they do for the soil -- if they are beneficial or harmful. I used to squish these huge worms until I found out they were the first process to the Monarch butterfly. Butterflies and moths are Earth's pollinators. When I found out these huge, disgusting worms were the beginnings of gorgeous butterflies, I felt like kicking myself.

We need to find out what the white grubs are, but my plants and soil don't seem the worse for their existence.

I am very careful now not to squish big worms in case they are beneficial and will eventually become butterflies or something else that is valuable. So, I am gentle with the white grubs, letting them do their thing. I have never witnessed the grubs eating my plants. They seem to hide in the soil, so I thought they were a natural part of the soil and had a job to perform for soil.

Anyone ever witness the white grubs attacking plants? Just because I haven't, doesn't mean they do not!

I'm not an expert. I ran across these critters while pulling weeds from my lawn. After reading this forum, I decided to look up the info.

Here are some useful URL's.

June Beetle

White Grubs

June Beetle in Encylopedia.com

I don't want them munching on the roots of my cherished plants. I am certainly not going to put them back in the soil ever again.

Thanks so much

First off, Japanese beetles DON'T live/reside/eat in San Diego!

Second, we don't yet have a size, shape, color, and location of the "grubs." That info would help determine who they are.

So, please WickedHeart, tell us a few of those details.

As for June bugs... I haven't seen irridescent ones... Only the ugly brown things that fly around at night. Maybe I better Google to see for sure what they look like. Hmm...

then it is the larvae of the June Beetle. They are a nuisance to lawns. Don't know how bad they are for regular vegetable/flower beds. They can be controlled with beneficial nematodes or with poison.

When I find them in my compost pile, I pick them out and put them in a bucket for birds to eat.

Aloha,

Nathan Lau
San Jose, CA

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Yes, those are the little boogers!! Thanks, I didn't want to go out digging in the yard so I could pose them for their glamour shots. June beetles are the iridescent green bugs, right?

My husband feeds the grubs to the box turtle so unless I see them doing some extreme damage I think we can coexist. If I really need to get rid of them I'll use beneficial nematodes.

Please note that the link you refer to states "not established."

- - -

Beyond that, here's good background info for everyone:

As it turns out, Japanese beetles (JBs) are unwanted, statewide, in CA. Thus, a trapping program is in place from (if I recall correctly) from May through October. In other words, the state and county agriculture departments are constantly vigilant.

Once a JB is detected/trapped, a more intense trapping protocol is put into place. Then, if needed, eradication is instituted.

JBs get transported into CA (and elsewhere they aren't yet established) via various means, among them hitchiking in baggage compartments of commerical airplanes.

Whenever someone in CA suspects they have a JB grub, it should be submitted to that person's county agricultural commission to verify the ID.

To my knowledge, the only JB "finds" in CA have been via official trapping protocol. (But then, I moved from Long Beach, CA, about 8 years ago.)

Aloha

Nathan Lau
San Jose, CA

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They also eat the grubs when I sift the compost, that they eat to make eggs, to give fertilizer, to make meat. This summer, I saw much fewer green iridescent bettles (June versus Japanese) flying in my garden.

I think I found a good solution. Those grubs/sow bugs, etc., can only stay in the coompost pile, so long as they are "working."

I use the sifting method mentioned above, with half inch galvanized hardware cloth stretched over a frame, then laid on the wheelbarrow. When the compost is sifted, I let it sit in the barrow for the birds to clean out the unwanted pests before I dump it into my planting areas.

Bejay

-- They are normal residents of a compost pile.
-- They eat dead stuff.
-- They don't eat live plants. (The main exception here is that HUGE populations of sowbugs and pillbugs can damage seedlings, mainly by scritching around in the soil.)
-- They are blamed for eating live plants and such fruits as strawberries, but they are only cleaning up damage that occurred before they arrived.

Those large green fruit beetles eat over-ripe fruits. They won't damage tomatoes which are intact and/or aren't over-ripe or otherwise damaged.

Brenda

The really large, loud, iridescent green beetles with tan edges are fig-eater beetles (also known as green June bugs, but unlike other June bugs they fly in the daytime). Their grubs are extra large, about 1 to 1.5 inches. The beetles eat ripe figs and other ripe thin-skinned fruit (like apricots or plums). They don’t eat much; they’re more interested in mating than eating. The grubs eat decaying organic matter, such as compost, and grass roots. They’re pretty harmless unless you get too many of them in your lawn.

When I started my vegetable garden two years ago, I threw about six inches of compost into the raised beds and sowed my carrots, beets, and radishes. The seedlings were knocked over by the foraging grubs of cotinis mutabilis (the big green scarab beetle sometimes called fig-eating beetle). They didn't eat the roots, mind you, they just wiggled through the soft soil and pushed the small plants over. Now I pull the big boys out when I spread compost and throw them back into the compost pile, where they work hard for me.

By the way, they are delectable to both scrub-jays and to domestic chickens. You can train a bird to swim if you have enough grubs. Hmmm, I wonder what they taste like? I'll get back to you...
Renee

With a nickname like compost shrimp it kind of puts puts a different perspective on this local source of protein.