Every summer, sometime in July or August, this part of our yard always develops a chinch bug problem. I've learned the early warning signs: grass looks dry, even after watering, always in the hottest, sunniest part of the yard. This is the way our yard looked a couple of days ago, just before I treated the little pests. Left untreated, they quickly could have ruined several hundred square feet of my lawn.
The old recommendation for checking for chinch bugs was to cut both ends out of a coffee can, then drive it into the ground and fill it with water. The chinch bugs, in that theory, would rise to the top of the water and you'd be able to confirm their presence. However, whoever came up with that plan missed taking two things into account. First, you can't drive the can through the thick, fibrous runners of St. Augustine, and second, you'll bend the can mercilessly if you try to hammer it into clay soils.
That takes us to the real way to check. Get down on your hands and knees during the hottest part of the afternoon and part the grass as shown. It's about the same technique you'd use to look through a dog's scalp for fleas. If they're present, you'll see the chinch bugs moving about freely within the organic matter layer near the runners. They'll be b-b-sized, and they'll be black with irregular white diamonds on their backs. For the record, I did confirm their presence in my lawn as I took this photo. I didn't have close-up equipment or a tripod, so I won't be showing you the small insects, but they were there.
"Were" in the past tense. They've subsequently been dispatched by a turf insecticide. You will find many options at nurseries and garden supply sources. A Texas Certified Nursery Professional can show you several.
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