Walk outside in the tall grass at your peril. It’s chigger season. Chiggers are tiny mites that cause itchy red bumps. On humans, they prefer areas where clothing is tight. Spots include sock-lines, backs of knees, groin, waist or armpits.
Contrary to public belief, chiggers do not burrow into you or even suck blood. Instead they stay on the surface, injecting a chemical that dissolves your skin and lets them feed. Covering the bites with whatever nail polish you can find does not “seal them in” and is unnecessary unless you think it’s aesthetically appealing. Bathing soon after visiting a chigger infested area is more helpful, as well as permethrin bug spray applied at tight spots on clothing or dusting those areas with elemental sulfur in an old sock.
To keep them out of your lawn, keep your turfgrass and weeds mowed. Backyard control of chiggers isn’t recommended preventatively, but if you’ve had more than a few bites lately you might consider treating.
Chiggers like living on the edge, which is the transition zone from short to tall plants, so only treat this area. A spray will be more effective than a granular product. Try lawn insecticides that contain bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, esfenvalerate or permethrin. Confirm it with the label before you spray, but generally these are pet safe after drying.
Chiggers are not the only itchy insect you may encounter in your yard. With the recent rainy weather the mosquitos are out for your blood. Many mosquitos do not fly far from their breeding grounds, only about two hundred to three hundred yards, according to the AgriLife Extension publication “Do It Yourself: Backyard Mosquito Control”. You have a week after a rain to find the standing water sites and dispose of these mosquitoes. For areas that cannot be dumped, use BTi granules or mosquito dunks.
If you are looking to get rid of the adult mosquitoes, perhaps to get ready for a graduation party that evening, you can use a fogger. Spray shady areas with lots of vegetation and apply in the evening when there is little wind. These foggers spray an insecticide, but the insecticides used in these offer little risk to humans. Follow the instructions on the label, and keep in mind, the relief is only temporary. Use of a fogger like this isn’t intended for longterm control. You can also use non-fogging insecticides in shady areas to temporarily control the mosquitoes as well.
Citronella geraniums and other plants that are reputed to be mosquito repelling are not. There are compounds in them that can repel mosquitoes, but these need to be concentrated. The plant sitting on the table is unlikely to repel anything, so enjoy it for its appearance, not its supposed function. Mosquito traps may be of limited effectiveness, depending on the type of trap. The buzzing blue zappers from my childhood are no longer recommended because they kill a lot of beneficial insects and are not attractive to female mosquitoes.
Tick issues are rare here. Texas A&M scientists suspect we have the red imported fire ant to thank for that. In a research paper “Red Imported Fire Ant Aggression Influences the Behavior of Three Hard Tick Species” by Kjeldgaard and others, they wrote that generally tick populations , with the exception of the Gulf coast tick, are low where red imported fire ants are, but not necessarily because the fire ants are eating them. This scientific paper reports that the ticks do not “quest” or wander around as much when fire ants are present. If the ticks do not wander, they cannot find food to eat, and numbers drop.
It is unlikely that killing out fire ants from your lawn will increase your tick population, so please, do not let this encourage you into protecting fire ants.
If you have any questions about insects in your lawn that might be making you itch, please feel free to contact me at the extension office at 830-9973452 or email me at elizabeth. mcmahon@ag.tamu.edu.
