What is this grub, please?

[bazzaboy]

My allotment neighbour is reclaiming an area that was previously an allotment but has just been mown rough pasture for several years. He's finding a lot of the same grub (as illustrated) at spade depth. It's about an inch (25mm) long, creamy white with a distinctive bright red head. Suggestions to date include vine weevil larvae, potato moth, leatherjacket larvae (unlikely), and chafer grub. Can anyone confirm please?

[WendyC]

I think it's a wireworm. They live in grass and that would fit with your description of where they're being found. Meant to decrease in numbers as the land is worked but no one has told the ones on my plot! Can be a nuisance in potatoes.

[Matt94]

i think it may be a vine weevil

[snohare]

Yes, I'd say wireworm. Leatherjackets are much fatter, and a different colour.
I find these quite often when digging fresh ground in the disused parts of the old garden where my allotment is, they live amongst (and on, I think) the grass roots. There seemed to be about one per square foot, and like small tatties they are tricky to spot - even when hand-sieving the soil off the roots of couch grass and removing all debris, I still found them in the soil that had been filtered. Definitely not good for tatties !

[Two_Sheds]

Wireworms are all orange.

Vine weevils are white with an orangey brown head, but they are a distinct C shape, with a fat middle and tapering ends

Leatherjackets are grey

BazzaBoy, yours is definitely a young chafer grub. Chuck it for the birds

[rustylady]

Chafer grub. If he turns the soil over the birds will have a feast.

[Norm]

If it has legs at the head end, it's a chafer grub. If it doesn't have legs, it's a vine weevil

[Two_Sheds]

You can't see the legs in BB's photo, but that doesn't make it a vine weevil

They're short and fat, chafers are longer and thinner by comparison

[bazzaboy]

Thanks for info and suggestions everyone, and for the excellent pics 2S. My pic was somewhat duff as taken with a phone and none too crisp. I'm going to the lottie this afternoon and will try to get a sharper pic. From memory it didn't have legs but I didn't really know what I was looking at or for at the time. To date and in digging quite a small area neighbour has squished about 50 of them so they're not exactly scarce! To be continued.....

[Two_Sheds]

in digging quite a small area neighbour has squished about 50 of them

That almost confirms my diagnosis! Chafers grow in grassy/uncultivated land, where they feed on the roots of plants

You tend to get vine weevil grubs most often in containers

[Norm]

I didn't actually say it was a Vine Weevil, I just tried to offer a more obvious difference so Bazz could check it for himself, which he intends to do

[snohare]

This controversy has given us all food for thought...or should that be grub...?

[Two_Sheds]

I didn't actually say it was a Vine Weevil

* sigh


and I didn't accuse you of saying it was

[Norm]

Sarcasm and back-tracking in the same reply. Most impressive.

[veggiechicken]

This controversy has given us all food for thought...or should that be grub...?

As it happens I was eating cashew nuts when I looked at these photos! Shan't be eating them again for a while!