What’s the Best Chinch Bug Treatment for Houston Area Lawns?
You’ve got a great looking lawn and then in a few days you start noticing damage, especially around concrete walkways and your driveway. What you might have are chinch bugs. In this video, Houston Grass Owner Michael Romine talks about chinch bugs and the best chinch bug treatment options for Houston lawns. If you have questions, please call us at 281-431-7441.
Summary of the Chinch Bug Treatment Video
– – I am Michael with Houston Grass. And today, we’re out in the neighborhood, and we’re looking at different issues that St. Augustine grass can have. We’re right here at the beginning of August and normally what you hope for is a really wet July. If it rains a lot in July, chinch bugs will be kind of kept at bay.
What Attracts Chinch Bugs to Your Lawn?
It’s been a fairly wet year. But in July, we had about three or four weeks of maybe a half inch of rain total. So, as I’ve been riding around, I have seen a few areas that have been hit by chinch bugs and this is one of them. This is a prime example of where chinch bugs will start. They’re looking for drought-stressed grass.
So, somebody goes on a vacation and forgets to turn on the irrigation system or doesn’t have an irrigation system and doesn’t let the neighbor come water or whatever. The rule of thumb is the grass needs one inch of water per week.
If you don’t give your lawn the water it needs and it hasn’t been raining, those chinch bugs will move in on that drought-stressed grass.
If you don’t give your lawn the water it needs and it hasn’t been raining, those chinch bugs will move in on that drought-stressed grass.
Michael Romine, Houston Grass
Chinch bugs are really bad because as they eat, they’re sucking the juice out of the grass. But as they eat, they inject a toxin into it. Once chinch bugs move to an area, they will kill your grass. You’ll replacing the area hit with chinch bugs with new grass because the grass is not going to come back. The only thing that’s going to come back is weeds, primarily Common Bermuda grass. So, if you see hot spots in your yard, you want to get them wet. You want to put extra water on those areas.
One way to confirm that you do have chinch bugs is you take a coffee can and fill it up. Cut out both ends and screw it down in the ground and fill it with soapy water and they’ll float up to the top. But if you spread the leaves of your grass and you look down in there, you’ll usually see the adult, looks like a black gnat. Their wings are folded across their back. The tips of their wings are white. And the younger stage of them, they’re smaller, obviously, and a little more orange.
This is the kind of spot they usually start. You see all the concrete around, all this concrete intersecting, radiates the heat onto this grass, which stresses this grass out. Drought stresses this grass and chinch bugs just love that.
Nitro-Phos Granular Chinch Bug Treatment
We do carry a product that Nitro-Phos has that’s a really good one. But any product that’s got Bifen in it is a really good choice. The one we carry is Nitro-Phos Bug Out Max. It’s a granular insecticide. You put it out with your spreader and then you water it in a little bit.
Cyonara Liquid Insecticide Chinch Bug Treatment
We also have a product called Cyonara Lawn & Garden, which is a liquid that you apply to your lawn with a hose.
At the first signs of these bugs or if you see drought stress, you should check for the bugs. Get on your hands and knees and spread that grass. If you see some gnat kind of things crawling around in there, then it’s time to use either the Bug Out Max or the Cyonara Lawn & Garden.
Either Chinch Bug Treatment Works If You Catch It Early
Chinch bugs are very easy to control. You probably could treat a couple of times and they’ll be gone. They move in and out of areas. Like I said, good maintenance practices like keeping your lawn well watered will keep them from getting a start.
Regular watering is absolutely necessary, if it’s not coming out of the sky, you got to get it out of the hose. So, just doing that, keeping the grass good and healthy, that will keep them at bay better than anything.
But if you do get them, treating in a timely fashion is a close second. I just saw some chinch bug damage in my neighborhood and wanted to talk a little bit about that. I wanted to give everybody an idea about what to look for and how to treat for chinch bugs.
Houston Grass South removed my old sod in my front yard that had been decimated by chinchbugs, and reinstalled 4 pallets of new sod. We had a huge rainstorm in the middle of the job, and the installers perservered and despite the bad conditions, they did a very good job. They worked until it was too dark and came back very early(7:30) the next morning to finish and clean up my yard, sidewalks and driveway. The installers and office people were nice and professional and I reccomend them for the good job and good price as well.
Shane W.
GatherUp ReviewAbout Houston Grass
At Houston Grass we’re proud to say that we deliver the best quality grass in the Houston area. We grow our grass on our family farm in Bay City, TX, and we know the care that goes into growing it. Michael Romine spent lots of time working on the farm, and he knows the grass because he grew up caring for the grass.
Our office is located off Highway 6 a few miles east of Sienna Plantation. We have sample plots of some of our grass there, and you can pick up grass at our office or we can deliver it to your project site. We also carry Bug Out Max and Cyonara if you need to treat your lawn for chinch bugs or sod webworms. Call us at 281-431-7441.
Get the Chinch Bug Treatments You Need
Call 281-431-7441 to check that we have the chinch bug treatments you need before you drive to our office. You can also click the button to contact us.
