This is the 13th edition of the 2008 OMAFRA Turf Management Update recorded on July 28.
Lots of heat in the forecast for the upcoming week with humidity low at the moment but building as we get closer to the weekend. The good thing is that the nights are going to be fairly cool. This lessens the chance of diseases like Pythium blight occurring. Over the last week the conditions that brought on the brown patch have persisted so there may actually be some turf thinning because of it. The brief drop in humidity will halt the symptoms briefly before they may return with the return of the humidity. The long range forecast is for things to cool next week down to roughly 20°C. This could change however.
The last week was good for summer patch, with the warm temperatures and frequent thunder storms, especially if you have poorly drained soils. Once summer patch occurs, anthracnose will often come in to colonize the stressed turf. Annual bluegrass turf may also be thinning as a result of the hot weather and high soil temperatures and saturated soils. There was pretty high dollar spot pressure last week and we are seeing it explode in our untreated areas here at GTI. All the rain has also lead to a lot of scalping. There is very aggressive turf growth combined with soft surfaces. Some of this scalping can be misdiagnosed as disease.
The rust on perennial ryegrass seems to have slowed down a bit. Another disease that I have seen on Kentucky bluegrass is leaf spot and melting out. I have visited a few lawns that have some patches of dead turf. There are no insects or signs of insects present. When you look carefully at the dead turf plants they all have a big leaf spot lesion at the crown of the plant. After every heavy rain there has been a flurry of mushroom growth in turf. This is to be expected. The mushrooms grow out of the thatch and they don’t cause any turf damage. Mowing the turf frequently will keep the mushrooms in check. Nothing aggressive should be contemplated until we have better growing conditions in a couple weeks time. If you have any unknown turf problems, please contact the GTI Turf Diagnostics. Information on this service is available at the link below. You can email them at
diagnostics@guelphturfgrass.ca or telephone at (519) 824-4120 x 58873.
European chafer adult flights are virtually finished. Japanese beetle flights are still pretty heavy but waning. Adults will continue to feed for a week or so yet. Just about a week left in the ideal window for Merit applications targeted for European chafer and Japanese beetle. If you plan to use nematodes for grub control the timing is late August to early September.
We are starting to see some insect damage now from both hairy chinch bugs and bluegrass billbugs. Hairy chinch bugs can be treated with deltamethrin or carbaryl.
We are starting to see the empty puparia (plural for puparium) from leatherjackets on the closely mowed turf here at GTI. This means that adult crane flies are emerging. At this moment, I am not sure what species are hatching. We will attempt to catch some adults over the next week and identify them. It is very early for European crane flies so I am expecting that it might be the common crane fly that is emerging. On golf course turf we are also seeing some black cutworm damage at the moment.
Another result of all the wet weather this summer is lots of moss and algae on golf greens. Unfortunately, there is still nothing registered for use for moss or algae control in Ontario. Research here at GTI has shown that frequent watering is one of the largest contributing factors to moss encroachment. Be careful not to irrigate too frequently.
Our GTI Turf Field Day is just under a month away. It is taking place on Aug. 21, 2008. Current areas of research that you can learn about include disease and insect biology and control, pesticide alternatives, evaluation of turf varieties, velvet bentgrass establishment and management, thatch management, irrigation scheduling, sportsfield overseeding and grassland ecology, to name a few. The program runs from 8:30 -1:00 with lunch included. For registration information follow the GTI Turf Field Day link below.
Thanks for calling the Turf Management Updates. This message will be updated on Fri. Aug 1, 2008. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2008/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-july-29-2008.html#sthash.QSLpcjMm.dpuf
