I don’t know if you northern folk get them or not. The odd years that we get them they seem to come on the south wind from Texas way. Usually its dry years, and we’ve had a dry spell here lately. But when they hit, its Katie bar the door. One of my newer neighbors resodded his front yard with tiffway bermuda, the kind of fine grass they use on the fringes of greens and the first cuts of fairways on golf courses. He cuts it with a rotary blade mower and even goes over it with a roller afyer he’s done. He mows like three times a week its ridiculous. But its his yard and his water bill, not mine. The army worms hit himfirst. Like a freight train. Whole yard munched up overnight. Now its brown dirt. And they’re all over the neighborhood.
They actually don’t bother me much. I have zoysia and the army worms takecare of the bermuda and crabgrass pretty good that try to invade.
I remember one summer when Mallard and I leased the old Island Ranch we were fishing on a natural lake there. The army worms had hit the pastures and from where we were standingvyou could hear them chewing. Nothing but buttercups in that pasture the next year. They’re destructive bastards. Bliblical even sometimes.

BkB