Welcome to the “Turf Management Report” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This is just a name change from the old “Turf Agriphone” messages. This message is being recorded for the week of May 7 – May 14, 2007. Just to remind you, these messages are available in three forms now. You can listen to a recorded message by telephoning the local number 519-826-3414 or 1-888-290-4441 . The reports are also available online at http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/updates/turfgrass/index.html. They are available as a written document and also as a podcast. The easiest way to get these weekly reports is to go to the subscribe/unsubscribe button at the Turf Management Report web site and subscribe. That way you will get an email and a link each time a new Turf Management Report is posted. If you are interested in subscribing to the podcast, simply click on the podcast button and follow the instructions. As of last week, I have added growing degree days to these reports for base 5° and 10°C and 54° F.
This last week and the upcoming week are forecast to be seasonal. The highs this weekend are supposed to be in the mid-teens and these will be replaced early next week with highs in the mid-twenties. The first real flush of turf growth is happening now and keeping up with mowing is going to be a challenge over the next couple of weeks. Things have dried up nicely and in some cases might be getting too dry. There is no rain in the forecast until the middle of next week.
The diseases that have been diagnosed so far this season are Pythium root rot, anthracnose basal rot, take-all patch and there was also some yellow patch. There were two samples received in the lab this week with winter injury. The annual bluegrass came out of winter looking green but once it tried to grow, there lower crown was damaged and no water or nutrients were able to be taken up and the grass started dying off. On areas with a history of summer patch, the Banner MAXX label states to apply a preventative application when soil temperatures at a 5 cm depth are greater than 16°C for more than 4 consecutive days. Now is a good time to start tracking those soil temperatures. Just a reminder to send any unknown turf problems to the GTI Turf Diagnostics. Information on this service is available at by following the link below.
It was another busy week for grub calls. Most of the calls are related to foraging of secondary pests such as skunks, raccoons and starlings. One approach is to make note of the damaged areas and apply Merit on those areas in June or July. Annual bluegrass weevil migration begins when forsythia are in full bloom and ends when flowering dogwood are in full bloom. In Guelph, at the moment the forsythia are in full bloom. The warm temperatures at the beginning of next week could get the annual migration of black turfgrass ataenius started. Keep your eye out for these tiny black beetles on warm sunny afternoons over the next couple of weeks.
Leatherjackets are developing quickly. They have doubled their size in the last two weeks. I have had several phone calls and emails from the field from areas with extremely high populations. Here at GTI we also have very high populations, but as of yet we have not observed any damage. Sevin T&O is now labeled to control leatherjackets on home lawns. There are several restrictions on when and how to use it on residential properties. These include: one application a year; treatment should be considered at or above 270 larvae per m2 and spot treatments only are allowed in residential areas and not more than 100 m2 area can be treated on a residential property. If you are finding significant numbers of leatherjackets they can be treated at any time now.
Again, this week I have a plea for turf managers. I would like to do some research on thresholds for leatherjackets. To do this, I am looking for sites with leatherjacket damage that I can sample before treatment is made. If you have residential or golf course sites with damage, I would appreciate hearing from you and my summer student and I can come out and do some leatherjacket counts. I have had a couple of responses to this plea, but am still looking for more sites. Most of the responses to date are from home lawns that are infested. I would also like to do this threshold work on golf course turf. If you are interested in cooperating on this leatherjacket threshold research please give me a call at (519) 824-4120 x 52597 or you can email me at pamela.charbonneau@ontario.ca.
Also on the leatherjacket front, we are interested to find out if we have the common crane fly (Tipula oleracea) here in Ontario. This species has been found in Michigan and western New York, so my insect instinct tells me that there is a good chance that it already is here in the Niagara peninsula and the southwestern part of the province. So far we have not confirmed this. It can be distinguished from the European crane fly by its life cycle. Adult common crane flies fly in April/May and Aug./September. The European crane fly adult flights are in September only. Another form of evidence would be the presence of the pupal casing on low cut turf. They look like little twigs sticking out of the turf. Yet another indication of T. oleracea is turf damage during late fall, winter and early spring. If you are finding damage that is very much like cutworm damage on your greens this time of year, the culprit could be the larval stage of the common crane fly. If you are seeing some adult crane flies, pupal casings or have turf damage that looks like cutworm damage this spring, please let me know and I can arrange to get a sample from you.
In the Guelph area the forsythia are in full bloom. Of course, this means that you should start thinking of crabgrass control. There is a degree day model that has been developed for base 54°F for crabgrass that predicts crabgrass germinates at 300 GDD base 54°F.
We actually don’t recommend applying a product like Dimension until the forsythia blooms have just fallen off. Because it has the early post emergence activity, even if you have a few germinated crabgrass plants, you will still get good control if applied according to this timing. As you will probably recall, last summer was brutal for crabgrass invasion. This was a huge home lawn problem, but I also had lots of calls from golf courses saying that they had been invaded. Hopefully, everyone made note of the areas with serious crabgrass problems last year so that only those areas need to be treated this spring. An alternative approach, especially if the turf has thickened up over the fall and spring, is to wait and apply a post-emergence herbicide on the small crabgrass plants, once they have germinated. This might be the best approach for golf courses, especially in areas that may need to be overseeded sometime during the growing season. Post-emergence products are not residual the way the pre- and early post-emergence products are. Both of the above approaches fit nicely into an IPM program.
Even though dandelions are starting to flower in the south facing areas, it is still too early for broadleaf weed treatments. These are usually timed for end of May to mid-June, once all the summer annuals have germinated.
Even though fall is the best time to overseed or reseed a turf area, now is a good time to seed any turf areas that were damaged from grubs or any other type of injury that occurred between fall and now. Make sure that you have good seed to soil contact and keep the seedbed moist. Apply a starter fertilizer and don’t apply a broadleaf herbicide until the seedlings are up and have been mowed a couple of times.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2007/turf-management-agriphone-for-may-4-2007.html#sthash.IapV7PY7.dpuf
