Welcome to the “Turf Hotline” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for the week of June16 – 23, 2000.
More rain again almost everyday this week combined with hot, hazy conditions. There are many repercussions throughout the industry. The sod growers are finding it difficult to find fields that are dry enough to harvest. It has also been hard for them to keep up with mowing with all the rain. The same holds true for spraying broadleaf herbicides. It has either been too wet or too windy.
On the disease front, the dollar spot did start last week. It started on the Sat. June 10th here at the Guelph Turfgrass Institute. There will continue to be new infections with the rain and the heat. There has also been a tremendous amount of red thread continuing to develop. I haven’t seen this much red thread since 1992 when we had the very wet summer. There is lots of leaf spot and there has been some “melting out” on Kentucky bluegrass lawns, sod farms and sports fields and this will continue to be a problem with the hot weather. To help the turf recover, raise the mowing height and fertilize lightly. There is still a bit of fusarium patch lingering from the cool wet weather a couple of weeks ago. It is important to remember that it is a very slow growing disease at this time of year but it can still be active. Also cool nights will keep this disease active. There has been a lot of anthracnose basal rot occurring over the past several weeks with all this moisture. This is often worse after topdressing or verticutting. Wounding the turf provides an entrance into the turf plant for this disease organism.
Insects to be on the look out for this week are June beetle adults and possibly some European chafer adults, especially in the southern part of the province. No sign of Japanese beetle adults yet. There have been some annual bluegrass weevils found over the last week feeding on annual bluegrasss in fairways and greens. There have also been some Aphodius grubs found in collars and edges of fairways. With all the rain the damage is not likely to be too great. The same is true for Ataenius grubs.
Space is becoming limited for the “Solving Turf Problems” workshop on July 11 but there is still room on July 12, 2000. We will start the day with a session in the field identifying turf diseases. We will move into the lab for the rest of the day to identify the diseases under the microscope. The limit is 20 people per day and the cost is $249. If you are interested in this workshop, phone my office for registration information at (519) 824-4120 x 2597.
Again, thanks for phoning the hotline for this week. The next hotline message will be recorded on Fri. June 23, 2000. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2000/-turf-agrifax-week-12-2000-june-16-2000.html#sthash.kmThMC99.dpuf
