Lawn Care - Leafhoppers Suck the Juice Out of Lawns in Huntsville, AL
Posted by Kathy Wilder on Wed, Aug 11, 2010
Bob, our branch manager in Huntsville, AL, reports a leafhopper 
infestation in Huntsville. He says you can walk through the grass on a lawn, and they hop out in big clouds.
Leafhoppers are tiny little insects that suck the juice out of grass or plant leaves, rather like chinch bugs do. When they pierce the blade of grass, they also inject a toxin, and the yellowed or bleached-out patches left in their wake are referred to as “hopper burn.” Unfortunately, the damage looks very much like heat and drought stress, so most people figure it’s just a matter of not watering enough.
Leafhoppers are mostly considered a nuisance insect in lawns, but are capable of substantial crop damage. However, on a weakened lawn or a new lawn, they can cause considerable damage, also. Given the 100+ temps we’ve had, many of the lawns in our service areas are stressed and weakened. 
Leafhopper damage in a bermuda lawn
If you notice yellowed spots that aren’t responding to watering, take a stroll through your lawn and see if you notice a lot of tiny bugs hopping everywhere. If little clouds of them rise up, you might have a problem. If you’re a Fairway Lawns customer, you might want to check with your tech to verify the problem – not only does leafhopper damage look like drought stress, it can also mimic some disease problems.
Fairway Lawns offers an insecticide application to take care of leafhoppers, or you can buy a pesticide like Sevin. Liquid Sevin is readily available in a bottle you can attach to your hose to apply easily. Leafhoppers have 3-4 life cycles throughout the summer, so you may have to apply insecticide more than once.
For such tiny bugs, leafhoppers are actually fascinating and some of them are very cute! There are more species of leafhoppers than there are of birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals combined, and new ones are being discovered every day. They are found on every continent, in every conceivable type of landscape from rain forests to the arctic tundra. Leafhopper fossils have been found dating back 125 millions years. Yow! The University of Illinois has an excellent site on leafhoppers created by C. H. Dietrich, Illinois Natural History Survey.