The hairy chinch bug, Blissus leucopterus hirtus, is a small sucking insect that is mainly a pest of turfgrass. Lawns and golf courses may suffer severe damage during years of hairy chinch bug abundance. Small, dead brown patches in turf grass are the result of their feeding.
Damage is most severe from the feeding of the young bugs as they pierce the cells of the grass blades and suck the sap from them. Grass blades turn yellow and then become brown and die.
Hairy chinch bug-infested lawns have an appearance of poor vigor. There are many dead grass blades interspersed among seemingly normal ones. As the hairy chinch bugs mature and become more numerous, increasingly larger turf areas become brown and die. They thrive in periods of hot, dry weather, and areas in full- sun appear to be hit the hardest. Entire lawns can be killed by a heavy infestation of these sucking insects. Common hosts are bluegrass, fescues, bentgrass, and zoysiagrass.
This insect overwinters as an adult in protected places in and around turfgrass. In early spring, as the ground thaws and temperatures warm, adults come out of hibernation and begin to feed. Shortly afterward, mating takes place and females begin laying eggs for the first generation.
The eggs hatch into young sucking bugs (nymphs) in late May. At first, a young nymph is about half the size of a pinhead. It is bright red and has a white band across the back. As the nymph grows and feeds, it sheds its skin four times.
By early August, nymphs of the second generation begin appearing from eggs laid in late July. There are 2 generations per year.
One of the easiest ways to determine if these insects are present in a lawn is to go to an area where you suspect the bugs, get down on your hands and knees, and use your two hands to part the grass to form a trough. As light penetrates the exposed trough, hairy chinch bugs will begin to burrow back into the darker areas. They are sensitive to the light and tend to move away from it. It is their movement that will enable you to detect them.
With a little practice, you can easily part the grass and detect hairy chinch bugs with little difficulty. Be sure to examine several places in a lawn to get a better idea of how severe an infestation is by the number of bugs you see in different locations.
Since the hairy chinch bug has two generations per year in Ohio, it may be necessary to apply more than one insecticide treatment to rid your turf of them.
It is possible to control adult hairy chinch bugs in the spring before they lay their eggs. If an adequate job is done, it won't be necessary to apply any further treatments that year unless migration into the treated area occurs from a neighboring area.
If adults are not controlled, or an inadequate application is made and hairy chinch bugs are still present, it may be necessary to apply 1 or 2 additional treatments to kill them before they damage the turf.
A second treatment is recommended if more complete control is desired or if a thorough examination of the treated area reveals that they are still present.
Overwintering Adult Control: If overwintering adults are controlled by applying an insecticide April 10 to May 15, there should be no need to apply any further treatments unless more bugs migrate into the treated area.
Spring Generation Control: If adults are not controlled, apply an insecticide around June 10-20 to control the young nymphs that have hatched from eggs laid by overwintering adults.
Summer Generation Control: Even though an earlier application of insecticide was applied, it may be necessary to apply another treatment around August 10-20 to control hairy chinch bugs or their offspring that were missed with earlier treatments, or to kill bugs that have migrated into the area.
Recommended Insecticides: The following insecticides will control hairy chinch bugs if they are used according to the directions on the label: carbaryl (Sevin), diazinon, Ethion, chlorpyrifos (Dursban), isofenfos (Oftanol), bendiocarb (Ficam W or Turcam), acephate (Orthene), ethoprop (Mocap), fluvalinate (Mavrik), Dymet and isazophos (Triumph).
NOTE: Disclaimer - This publication may contain pesticide recommendations that are subject to change at any time. These recommendations are provided only as a guide. It is always the pesticide applicator's responsibility, by law, to read and follow all current label directions for the specific pesticide being used. Due to constantly changing labels and product registrations, some of the recommendations given in this writing may no longer be legal by the time you read them. If any information in these recommendations disagrees with the label, the recommendation must be disregarded. No endorsement is intended for products mentioned, nor is criticism meant for products not mentioned. The author and Ohio State University Extension assume no liability resulting from the use of these recommendations.
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Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Adm. and Director, OSU Extension.
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