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 14 – 21, 2007.
What a beautiful week we had last week, with the high’s in the mid-twenties most of the week. The Environment Canada 14 day forecast looks like a roller coaster ride. The cool temperatures are supposed to get colder by mid-week and then slowly warm up for the Victoria Day weekend. This will be a nice change. I seem to recall the last few Victoria Day weekends were particularly cold and nasty for all those campers and cottagers braving the first long weekend of the season. It has been mostly dry over the last week with one rain event for most areas in the southwestern part of the province. It has definitely been a season where irrigation needed to be started early.
Diseases
Disease activity over the last week has been pretty minimal with the nice dry weather. This week the GTI Turf Diagnostics diagnosed some Pythium root disfunction and take-all patch. Out in the field, there was still a fair bit of Fusarium or Michrodochium patch visible most of last week. The turf has grown out of those symptoms now, but the return of the cool nights and heavy dews could cause a small resurgence in this disease. Last week saw soil temperatures rise. 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. 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.
Insects
The grub calls have kept coming this week. 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-late bloom. This week, we saw the first Aphodius beetles returning to the closely mowed turf. I have made a note that this occurs when forsythia are in full-late bloom and lilacs are in early bloom. The black turfgrass ataenius will be next. They are usually about 2 weeks behind the Aphodius. The type of damage that occurs with each of these grub species is very similar and usually occurs in late June to early July.
This has been a big week for leatherjacket feeding and damage. Also, the rain on Wed. night forced many of them out of lawns and on to hard surfaces such as sidewalks and driveways. Many people who were not aware that they have leatherjackets now know they have them. Damage has begun to show up on heavily infested home lawns now in the London area. We did some counts on the damaged areas and found roughly 150 leatherjackets/0.1m2. We are starting to see extensive damage here at GTI in some of the lower lying moist areas. 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.
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.
Weeds
In the Guelph area the forsythia are in late bloom. There is still a small window in which to apply products like corn gluten meal that have no post emergence activity on crabgrass.
There is a degree day model that has been developed for base 54°F for crabgrass that predicts crabgrass germinates at 300 GDD at 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. 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.
Many turf areas are a sea of yellow at the moment. It is still too early to treat for broadleaf weeds. These are usually timed for end of May to mid-June, once all the summer annuals have germinated. Of course it is important to be aware of any by-laws restricting the use of any kind of herbicide on home lawns. For instance, in the City of Toronto broadleaf herbicides are not allowed at all and only corn gluten meal can be used for crabgrass control.
Cultural Practices
Even though fall is the best time to overseed or reseed a turf area, there is still a window from now until early June to overseed. This is useful for any other type of injury that occurred between last 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. Because it has been dry, now is a good time to core aerate. Soil should be neither too dry or too wet, but it is better to be on the dry side than the wet side.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2007/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-may-12-2007.html#sthash.TwgIrPvg.dpuf
