Lawn-killing chinch bugs becoming abundant in all Calgary quadrants

The return of the chinch bug The chinch bug sucks the juice out of blades of grass. They were a problem last year in southeast Calgary, and now, they are spreading out. Kevin Fleming reports.

They're a small pest that have a big appetite for Calgary lawns.

Chinch bugs live in the thatch layer and suck out the plant's nutrients while injecting a toxin killing the blade of grass. The result is small dead patches that will gradually expand to engulf an entire lawn.

For more than seven years, the pests infested many southeast green spaces, but now lawn-care companies are receiving calls from home owners all over the city.

James Szojka is the owner of Yard Dawgs Lawn Care and says the bugs colonize in the thousands.

"We have clients in Chestermere, in Airdrie," he said. "We've never seen chinch bugs spread the way they have so far this season."

Szojka says chinch bugs are most active in the hot, dry summer months and migrate quickly to surrounding healthy lawns.

"What's really tough is that in the winter they don't get killed from our cold snaps, even – 30 C," he said. "They winterize, they hide under trees and shrubs only for the next season then come out and start to multiply."

Bruce and Nancy Crow live in the southeast community of Copperfield and knew the pests were prevalent in their quadrant of the city but didn’t think it was the cause of their lawn issues.

"I thought I just had like a dog pee spot on the front yard," Bruce said. "I scratched it up and dug it out and put some seed in it watered it again and it just didn't come back but (the dead spot) kept getting bigger and bigger."

He tried a number of home remedies discovered on the internet but none worked. He tried products from garden centres with a little success but the pests remained and kept killing his lawn.

"We go out at night when the weather's been very hot," he said. "Then you see the bugs crawl across the sidewalk on the cement so you know they're migrating everywhere, you can't stop them."

Nathan Tobias is the operations manager at Yard Dawgs and oversees seven technicians. In the last two weeks, they've treated more than 200 lawns. He says it's important to have an expert come and inspect a lawn to determine the exact cause of the problem.

"Sometimes people don't even know they have them and I let them know," Tobias said. "It's important to catch it before it does get worse, so doing those inspections, there's no harm in it and it's super important to know what's actually going on in your lawn."

Tobias and his team use a commercial grade pesticide to rid a lawn of chinch bugs.

"We do a full blanket spray, meaning we cover every single square inch of the lawn," he said. "The biggest thing though is that we actually are targeting those areas that do look very disturbed to ensure that we're giving a good soaking on that area to kill them all."

Szojka says once a home owner knows their lawn is infested with chinch bugs it's important to communicate that to neighbours so a plan can be put in place to annihilate the pests from the community.

"Fall aerations are very important for disrupting the lawn itself and de compacting the soil, opening it up so that it can breathe essentially," he said. "That will make the conditions less prone to chinch bugs in the future so fall aerations are one of the best things that homeowners can do on an annual basis to make sure that chinch bugs aren't coming in to stay in their 'Airbnb' when it gets really hot in July in August."

Once a lawn has been treated, the dead grass won't grow back but needs to be replaced by sod or seeding.

"It's a hit to budget trying to keep up with this every year," said Bruce. "I think if we all get together for one year (and eradicate chinch bug infestations) we might be able to get a year off once in a while, right."