Chinch Bug Damage
It all begins with an idea.
Chinch Bugs in your St. Augustine grass will cause excessive damage that will kill off sections of your turf. They will damage your turf quickly and it’s hard to recover the damaged leaf blades. Chinch Bugs will attack stressed and weak areas of the lawn. These areas include sections along the sidewalk and driveway, open sunny areas, and areas where there is drought stress. The damaged areas will start to show signs of yellowing, which can sometimes be misdiagnosed for iron deficiency, and then followed by the leaf blades dying off. The damaged areas usually start off in circular patterns with finger like areas expanding from there. Chinch Bugs can cause serious damage if not treated properly.
There are a few ways you can determine if it is Chinch Bugs that are causing the damage to your turf. First step is to go to the outer edge of the area that is being damaged and pull back the turf in order to see the soil. You can usually see them running around the top of the soil and the grass blades. Sometimes you cant see them running around. So what you would need to do is peel back a few of the blades of grass down by roots. This is where the young Chinch Bugs will be feeding. The adult Chinch Bugs have black bodies with a white spot on their back. While the young Chinch Bugs are red in color.
There are a few key ways to help prevent Chinch Bug damage. The first step is to have the right fertilization program for the turf. A healthy, thick, and properly watered lawn will help ward off Chinch Bugs from causing damage. Another way is to apply preventative insecticide to the lawn twice a year. The best insecticide that has proven results is Arena. You want to make split applications of Arena on the lawn so you get year long control of Chinch Bugs along with many other insects.