Welcome to the “Turf Hotline” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for the week of Aug.18- 25, 2000.
Apart from Monday and Tuesday of this week, we are back to moderate temperatures with daytime highs in the mid 20’s and nighttime lows in the mid teens. Things have been considerably more dry this week also with some scattered thundershowers early in the week and some more predicted for the weekend.
Dollar spot still continues to be very active on golf course turf and home lawns. The disease of the summer where home lawns and sports fields are concerned is rust. To help control this disease, mow regularly and fertilize. Rust has been very severe this year giving many stands of perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass that orange/yellow tinge from afar. As nighttime temperatures begin to cool down, we could see some Fusarium patch activity starting up again. We have had very few reports of necrotic ring spot or take-all patch again this week with the slightly drier conditions.
Most hairy chinch bugs are in the later nymph stages or are adults by now. There has been some damage, but it is much less severe than the past two summers. There are some first instar grubs around now. The young grubs are feeding anywhere from very near the surface to about 2.5 cm below the soil. We are no longer finding eggs when we are monitoring, so curative treatments on areas where grubs are found can start now. The insecticide choices at this time of year are chlorpyrifos, diazinon and carbaryl. The non-insecticide choice are the parasitic nematodes. Make sure to water the insecticides in as soon as possible after the treatments. The same holds true for nematode treatments.
Anytime now, you can apply the first of the fall fertilizer treatments. This first treatment will help the turf recover from any summer damage and green it up. With all the rain, the fertilizer that was applied earlier in the season has run out of steam. The second fall fertilization application can go on in late October – early November.
Now is a great time to seed new lawns or to seed damaged turf areas. With the cooler temperatures and more consistent rainfall there is rarely a need to water. Usually mother nature takes care of that. It is also a good time to core aerate turf.
This has been Pam Charbonneau. The next hotline message will be recorded on Fri. Aug. 25, 2000. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2000/-turf-agrifax-week-21-2000-august-18-2000.html#sthash.q3HRyveM.dpuf
