28 March 2024

Customer Question – Heavy rain and LOTS of Leatherjackets

Q. “I ordered nematodes from you guys last week as we have an infestation of leatherjackets. We applied it on Sunday, doubled the amount etc, had no issues and all seemed fine until Tuesday night. The forecast for this week changed to pretty much just rain, it’s rained for the last couple of days quite heavily and today looks like it’s going to be the same. We live in a newbuild with a crappy garden with poor drainage and very dense clay ground, which doesn’t help at all. For the past 2 nights we have ended up with this on our patio –

What does this mean?? It seems like they’re escaping from the nematodes? We have had worse days for rain since having this infestation, and we’ve never ever had any kind of issue where they’ve come onto the patio, this has only happened since the application. Any help or reassurance that this is somewhat normal would be much appreciated, thank you.” Kate

A. Thanks for the message / picture and this is just the leatherjackets escaping the really wet soil, so they do not drown (I bet you wish they would). The nematodes take 2-3 weeks to work and then as the leatherjackets die, they disintegrate and release more nematodes back into the soil to kill more leatherjackets. Keep sweeping them up as the more you get rid of the better and then the nematodes should take care of what is left. My only concern is that if it was ALOT of rain it may over dilute the nematodes so fingers crossed it has time to infect the nematodes before it rained really hard. Let me know how its looking in a few weeks and hopefully in the meantime the rain will stop.

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