Weather
It felt like summer over the past week even though it is still not officially summer. The forecast now is for seasonal temperatures. The nights are going to be slightly warmer than usual. There is rain in the forecast for Friday overnight and Saturday and after that the skies will clear. We could use some high ET’s to help dry things out. Any golf courses with imperfect drainage are swamps at the moment. Municipal sports fields have had to close over the last week because the soils are too wet for play. Lawn care is having a hard time scheduling broadleaf herbicide and fertilizer applications. Sod growers are having a difficult time keeping up with the mowing. You get the picture. It has been wet, wet, wet.
There was some active dollar spot last week but it will probably slow down over the next week with lower temperatures and lower relative humidity. The GTI Turf Diagnostics has had some Waitea patch diagnosed this week. Symptoms resemble yellow patch but they appear during warmer conditions than yellow patch. There is an excellent factsheet written by Dr. John Kaminski and Dr. Frank Wong on brown ring patch. There was a flare up of red thread also last week, with all the thunderstorms. The overall disease risk for the upcoming week should be low. You may see some signs of take-all patch developing, especially if we have high ET’s over the next week.
On home lawns there has been a lot of the melting out stage of leaf spot. It seems to follow the pattern of the mower wheels and or areas with lots of clippings. With the drier conditions the turf will recover from this disease. Although not a disease problem, the stemmy look of homelawns due to the mowed seedheads has reduced the quality of lawns at the moment.
If you do encounter a turf problem that you can’t identify, you can always send a sample to GTI Turf Diagnostics. Information on this service is available on the GTI web site. You can also email them at ‘; document.write( ‘<a ‘=”” +=”” path=”” ‘\”=”” prefix=”” ‘:’=”” addy78552=”” ‘\’=””>’ ); document.write( addy_text78552 ); document.write( ‘<\/a>’ ); //–>\n or telephone at (519) 824-4120 x 58873.
A few more June beetles have been observed last week. The adult flights should slow down very soon. They have a three year life cycle and more information on them can be found on the OMAFRA web site in the factsheet “Grubs in Lawns”.
Peak adult flights of black turfgrass ataenius have passed. Preventative applications for areas with a history of BTA damage can be applied for a week or two more. You want to apply insecticides prior to egg hatch.
We are about one week away from the usual time when we start to see European chafer adults emerge. This happens on warm, early summer evenings about dusk.
We did a few soap flushes this morning and we found quite a few caterpillers. They definitely look like black cutworm, but it seems a bit early. Adult black cutworm moths fly in from the US usually about this time of year and lay their eggs and it is the developing caterpillars in late June that usually cause damage. The caterpillars could be sod webworm that overwintered as caterpillars and resumed feeding in the spring, but seems a bit late for them. Whatever they are, they are causing some damage. If you are seeing what might be black cutworm damage, pour 4 L of water that contains 15 mL of dishwashing liquid on a small area of turf 0.1m2 and wait to see if any caterpillars surface. This soapy disclosure solution will also flush out BTA adults and you can get an idea of how many of those you have also. One of the key cultural practices for controlling black cutworms is to dispose of the clippings away from greens. For products registered to control insects on turf in Ontario refer to OMAFRA Publication 384, Turfgrass Management Recommendations.
Weed control products and timing
Dandelions have finished flowering. All broadleaf weeds are actively growing and this is still an excellent time to apply a broad-leaf herbicide.
With the blast of heat and the thundershowers earlier in the week, crabgrass has germinated in some open areas. It is not widespread yet.
All of the wet weather has meant that turf roots are very shallow this spring. This does not bode well for the turf once things dry out. Already, with a few dry days we are seeing localized dry spots pop up. The other fact about the wet spring is that it sets things up nicely for summer patch. If things get hot and dry quickly the turf just doesn’t seem equipped to cope at the moment. There might need to be some syringing done to keep short rooted annual bluegrass alive over the summer. Put on your seatbelts, it could be a rough ride.
Just another reminder of the deadline for posting the golf course 2010 Annual Report– Pest Control Product Usage and associated maps is coming up quickly. Both of these documents must be posted in a public area of the golf course and on the IPM Council of Canada website before June 30, 2011. Golf courses that submitted their 2010 desk reviews in paper form must obtain a user name and password for the Members Only portion of the website and upload their 2010 Annual Report and map before June 30, 2011. For more information, go to www.ipmcouncilcanada.org and click on the Members tab. There is also more information on the preparation and posting of the annual report in the Technical Guidance – Pesticides Act and Ontario Regulation 63/09 Golf Courses posted on the Ministry of Environment web site.
I appreciate the feedback. You can reach me by phone or email at (519-824-4120 x 52597) or by email at pamela.charbonneau@ontario.ca.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2011/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-june-10-2011.html#sthash.v8jmTlzm.dpuf
