How can you identify chinch bug damage in your Houston area lawn? Chinch bug damage can turn your lawn to hay very quickly. In this video, Houston Grass Owner Michael Romine talks about how to identify chinch bug damage in your lawn and treatments you can use to kill the chinch bugs. Please call us at 281-431-7441 if you need more information.
Summary of the Chinch Bug Damage Video
We’re here in an area where I’ve noticed some chinch bug damage and we’ve pulled over to look. This is as many chinch bugs as I’ve ever seen in an area.
How to Tell the Difference Between Chinch Bug Damage and Drought Stressed Grass
Basically, chinch bugs are looking for drought-stressed grass, so you might think there’s just a dry spot in your yard. More than likely, that is where they start and it’s usually up next to the concrete, because the heat radiating off the concrete stresses the grass. The chinch bugs will move in. If you think you have chinch bugs, you don’t look at the dead area to find the bugs, you look at the areas around the perimeter of the dead area where it’s still kind of green.
The chinch bugs will kill an area of grass. As they eat, they suck the juice out of the plant and it basically turns it to hay. They inject a toxin as they eat, as well. So you’re going to have to replace the grass they kill, because the only thing that’s going to come back there is weeds.
Basically, you can see them in the grass. You see there’s a little gnat-looking insect. They have black bodies and their wing tips are white. In the adult stage the white marking forms an X across their back as they fold their wings. But, there are different life stages.
They say if you get down on your hands and knees and part the grass, if you can count more than five or six of them in a minute or so, you got to problem. Right now, I’m not counting, but there are hundreds right here in front of me.
The reason this is a place I know they always come is because we’re only standing on about six inches of dirt and underneath it is a big concrete pipe. So, there’s not much dirt. The grass isn’t real healthy because it just doesn’t have an extensive root system because of that lack of dirt. This is a place that a chinch bug is going to show up first every time.
We didn’t have any rain for the last several weeks. We’ve had a fairly wet year, but it didn’t rain about three weeks in July, so this grass got drought-stressed. These chinch bugs showed up here and they are doing a number on the grass. If this was your backyard or front yard, you would definitely have to replace this grass.
How to Kill Chinch Bugs
To kill chinch bugs I recommend a treatment of either the Cyonara liquid or the Nitro-Phos Bug Out Max. Either one would take care of these guys in a real big hurry.
We now recommend either the liquid, Cyonara, or Wisdom granular insecticide.
They’re really easy to kill, but you got to identify them. You can’t mistake ’em for just drought stress. You’ve got to get on your hands and knees and you can confirm that you’ve got chinch bugs pretty quickly by doing that.
Some people say if you stick a coffee can in the ground and fill it up with water, they’ll float to the top. Others say to just pour a bucket of soapy water on this area and they’ll come running up out of there, as well. But right now, there’s so many here that it is unmistakable.
I just wanted to show you some chinch bug damage in the grass and show you some chinch bugs as well.
Houston Grass Carries What You Need to Kill Chinch Bugs
We carry the Cyonara liquid insecticide treatment for killing the chinch bugs in your lawn, and we carry Wisdom if you prefer a granular insecticide. Please call us at 281-431-7441 for more information.
Our office is located just off Highway 6 in Arcola, TX, and a few miles east of Sienna Plantation. Click the button for our hours and directions to our office.
