Welcome to the “Turf Agriphone” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This message is being recorded for the week of July 20 – 27, 2001.
It has been hot, hazy and humid so far for this week and it appears from the forecast that this will continue. There have been some thunder showers moving through. Outside of the thundershowers, it has been extremely dry. Non-irrigated turf is dormant in most areas. Because we have not had rain now for almost 4 weeks, it might be a good idea to give dormant turf a 1-2 cm watering just to insure that the turf survives the next week or two. Turf can go for a fairly long period of time in a dormant state, but after about 6 weeks without water there can be significant turf death. For irrigated turf there is some chance of the summer diseases like Pythium blight and brown patch developing as well as anthracnose. Dollar spot and take-all patch are also active right now.
Japanese beetle adults flights have remained steady and damage is starting to occur on trees and shrubs. We probably have another week of beetle flights. We are still in the Merit window for grub control. Just be sure to make sure it is watered in.
Hairy chinch bug nymphs and adults are present in lawn right now and are feeding very actively. Because the lawns are dormant, we are not seeing the brown patches caused by chinch feeding. These nymphs will be feeding on dormant turf for the most part and we will probably run into a situation like we did in 1999. Come late August when the rains return, people will find that their grass is dead.
It is best to suspend all cultural practices and fertilizer applications if turf is dormant. For turf that is being irrigated, it can probably use another fertilizer applicaton about now.
Again, thanks for phoning the Turf Agriphone for this week. The next agriphone message will be recorded on Fri. July 27,2001. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2001/turf-agrifax-week-15-2001-july-20th-2001.html#sthash.QMRE9SBH.dpuf
