# Pest in St Augustine lawn



## ducaud (Sep 10, 2019)

Hello. I live in Miami, Florida, and I have about 15,000 sq ft lawn composed of Saint Augustine grass. I beleive I have a mixture of Palmetto,, and Floratam variety.
Recently I found that my grass blades were thinning, and I found moths flying around my lawn, mostly at dawn and dusk.
I read that the issue was the eggs that the moth were laying in the grass that will transform in webworms that will eat the grass. So I applied 3 bags of Ortho Bug B Gon, It does not seem to have solved the issue. This morning I did the test of adding a bowl of soapy water to one of the thinning areas, and what it came up is not a worm, here attached is the picture of the bug. Why did it not die with the Ortho application. it looks to be thriving. 
What can I use to eliminate this pest. 
I also have nice edges around my garden composed of Ficus benjamina, and I have kept it really healthy, away form the whiteflies using Talstar, which I apply once a month to keep the white flies and also the very active cuban laurel thrips.
Indeed the bug that I have in the grass looks like an oversize cuban laurel thrip. Should I apply Talstar to the lawn also.
Thanks and Regards,
Juan


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## Dawgvet (Jul 2, 2019)

Looks to me like an earwig. 
Hard to tell but there appears to be small pincers at the end of the abdomen, which is typical of earwigs. 
I'll leave the controlling part to someone else. 
They love to eat my flower plants. I read somewhere to add Marigolds amongst the flowers to repel them....they ate them.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

I had very little luck with granular products for killing webworms/armyworms. Use a liquid, and apply at dusk when they are more active. They live in the thatch so you need a decent amount of water per thousand square feet, I wouldn't do less than two gallons per thousand square feet. Mix in the Talstar, or I had best luck with Spinosad - a lot of things are becoming resistant to Talstar. You can also mix in some imidacloprid which will give a residual action - it gets absorbed by the plant and it lasts for about a month so anything that chews on the leaf will get killed. It's not fast though, so good to use it plus the faster kill of the Talstar or Spinosad. And you'll need to repeat the fast kill product in a week.


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## ducaud (Sep 10, 2019)

Thanks to both for your replies.
I Have used liquid, but all last month the amount of rain down here in Miami has been washing out the liquid pretty fast.
I have Talstar both in liquid and granules, I have been using it only for the ficus edges, so I will use them for the lawn.
I will put granules in the whole lawn, and use the liquid on the problem spots.
Thanks and Regards

Juan


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