I received this interesting question in August 2020 about crane flies attacking a lawn year after year. “We’ve had leatherjackets now for ten plus years, gradually getting worse every year. We were of the understanding that crane flies return to where they were larvae.” This is an interesting question about crane flies. Find out more about them and if they return.
The spring of 2020 has seen a huge rise in the number of leatherjackets infecting lawns. Two mild winters and a damp summer combined with the eradication of any controls has resulted in an explosion in numbers of the insects. If your lawn looks to be suffering, have a dig around, you may find the culprit. So what do you do if you find leatherjackets in your lawn?
Updated: October 2020 Download my leatherjacket fact sheet This is a summary PDF of this blog post in an easy to see, printable format. What are leatherjackets? A leatherjacket is the common name for the larval stage of an insect called a crane fly. They are in the Tipulidae family of insects. In the UK, two species of… Read More »