Mole Crickets

How to perform a Soap Flush Test in your yard

In Jacksonville & St. Augustine, FL, Mole crickets are common turfgrass pests. Three species of these lawn insects are common in the Southeastern United States: tawny, southern, and short-winged.

The insect’s “hands” are uniquely adapted for digging, allowing it to tunnel through the soil. Sod farms, home lawns, golf courses, and pastures can all play host to these invasive pests. Any species of turfgrass can be damaged by mole crickets, but they particularly like bahia grass and bermuda grass.

These destructive pests make tunnels in the ground, severing grass roots and causing the earth to bulge upwards in ugly brown patches. Predators such as raccoons and armadillos may further dig up the turf to snack on them.

Mole Cricket Season

Mole Crickets do the most damage from late August to early October. There is one generation of crickets per year, with eggs typically being laid in April and May. These creatures are nocturnal, which means they do their dirty work at night. If you have a street light anywhere near your front yard, mole crickets fly at night and they’re attracted to that light.

Mole Cricket Soap Flush
Mole Cricket Soap Flush Test

Soap Flush Test VIDEO

An easy way to determine whether there are mole crickets in your yard is to mix 1.5 ounces of liquid dishwashing soap. like Dawn, into 2 gallons of water and sprinkle the mixture over 4 square feet of turf. If two to four crickets appear within three minutes of application, corrective action is justified.

When our technicians apply insecticide across the lawn, we make a uniform pattern to ensure proper coverage. Peninsular makes certain that the insecticide gets down to the area where the crickets are tunneling, below the surface. We use approximately 10 gallons per thousand square feet of surface area. So, for 10,000 square foot lawn, we actually use about a hundred gallons of material.

In conclusion, I hope this video showed you what mole crickets look like in Jacksonville, and it taught you how to test for them and what the damage in a lawn looks like. If you think you have them, give Peninsular a call and one of our professional service technicians will come out and take a look. Estimates are always FREE!