Question
How do I get rid of cinch bugs in my lawn?  They seem to be in their adult stage presently.

Answer
Blissus insularis?  Chinch Bugs?

These are VERY common St Augustine foes.  They rank as the MOST DESTRUCTIVE PEST in St Augustine Lawns.

This creepy crawler favors HOT, DRY WEATHER and RADIANT HEAT sources:  Streets, Sidewalks, Foundations, Driveways.  Here the bug is a Featured Creature at University of Florida Agricultural School:

creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/orn/turf/southern_chinch_bug.htm

Pundits at UFAS take Chinchbugs very, very seriously: 'The Southern Chinchbug displays a dietary preference for St Augustinegrass, and this preference has elevated the Southern Chinchbug to the second most expensive plant feeding arthropod in Florida.'

Yuck!

Here's my favorite part, where they may be describing your Lawn:

'An infested Lawn displays discolored patches, which are usually circular in shape.  Injury typically occurs first in water-stressed areas along the edges of the Lawn or where the Grass is growing in full sunlight ...St Augustinegrass cultivated on high, dry, sandy or shell Soil is especially vulnerable...'

It gets better.

'When B. insularis population levels are high, the Chinchbugs are seen running over the Grass blades.  However, their main feeding activity continues to focus on the area of the plant between the turf thatch and the organic Soil level...'

These bugs like to finish the job they've started. Their appetites are for Grass sap.  So Lawn damage is variable, not uniform.  As  UFAS puts it, 'The extent of injury of infected areas of St Augustinegrass results from the gregarious feeding habits ... Large numbers of nymphs and adults gather at the base of one plant.  As they feed, they drain the sap from the Grass until it withers, turning from a healthy Green color to a Brown-Yellow color, and finally dies ... Once the feeding group has killed one section of Grass stolons, they move as a unit to the next adjacent stolon, continuing their destruction of the Lawn.'

Now, you MIGHT NOT have a Chinchbug problem; you have not described any symptoms yet.  If you're looking at a Yellow Lawn, and assuming you have Chinchbugs, understand that there are so many reasons Grass turns Yellow.  I don't even know where you live, or what kind of Grass you have.  But I'll assume you have tested for Chinchbugs, and tested positive.

So....

The greater wisdom on your Chinchbugs problem is this:  The ONLY people who have Chinchbugs on their Lawn in Florida are the people growing.... St Augustine Grass.

Texas Agricultural Extension has prepared a bulletin, 'Chinch Bugs in St Augustine Lawns':

aggie-turf.tamu.edu/files-2005/Chinch%20bugs.pdf

It's about the Southern Chinchbug.  It says: 'Thatch provides a protective home for Chinchbugs and chemically binds with many insecticides, making such controls less effective.'

Let's read that again:

'Thatch ... chemically binds with many insecticides, making such controls LESS EFFECTIVE.'

Not good.  Anything sound familiar here?  Got thatch?

Figure that you get Thatch when dead plant matter and debris build up in your Grass.  In a healthy lawn, with healthy Grass and Soil, Grass clippings and dead roots break down naturally.  This happens quickly.  Especially in the warm Southern states.

If the cycle is thrown off, and the natural break down of clippings and dead roots stops, you get Thatch.  There's a smaller population of microbes in the Soil.  Now the Grass clippings and dead roots that were supposed to break down AREN'T breaking down.  Actually, they start to build up.  And there aren't enough Soil microbes to break them down.  It just gets worse and worse.  The stuff left is called Thatch.

So let's get back to your original question: How do you get rid of Chinchbugs?

There are so many Chichbug predators out there, it's a wonder that ANY Chinchbugs escape.

The Bigeyed Bug -- Geocoris uliginosus -- is the most important destroyer of the Southern Chinchbug in Florida's St Augustine Lawns.

There's also the Striped Earwig, Labidura riparia.

And there's Xylocoris vicarius and Lasiochilus pallidulus.

Nematodes, beetles, ants -- it's not easy being a a Southern Chinchbug these days.   Need I point out that using Pesticides to solve this problem will kill all those natural Predators at the same time -- so DO NOT USE THEM.  Water carefully, and those Chinchbug enemies will thrive on that Chinchbug population.

Hope I got back in time.  Keep me posted.  Your followups invited.

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER