Welcome to the “Turf Agriphone” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This message is being recorded for the week of June 29 – July 6, 2001.
Wow, is it ever hot! The forecast is for more of the same until Canada Day and then there is a cooling trend to the low 20’s. There are thundershowers in the forecast, but no real rain in sight.
On the disease front, dollar spot is still not very active. Dr. Tom Hsiang has plots that were inoculated with dollar spot and those are the only areas showing dollar spot here at GTI at the moment. Diseases that have been reported over the last week are brown patch, anthracnose basal rot and anthracnose foliar blight. With the thundershowers forecast, this will increase the risk of Pythium blight developing. Nighttime temperatures are creeping up and the low tonight is going to be 21° C and this also increases the risk of Pythium. Other golf courses diseases that have been prevalent over the last week are summer patch and take-all patch. General recommendations for turf management during this hot weather is to suspend all cultural practices and syringe greens daily.
Home lawns that are not being irrigated are showing signs of drought and going dormant now. This is especially evident around the bases of trees where the tree roots are competing for moisture with the lawns. The shallow rooted grasses such as rough bluegrass and creeping bentgrass are browning off first. Also, necrotic ring spot symptoms are starting to show up now with the drought stress.
European chafer adults have been flying now in the Guelph area for a week. This weekend is usually when we see peak adult flights, so if you are having a barbecue and fireworks on Canada Day, you might see the chafers pop out of the turf at dusk. This is the ideal time for Merit applications and they can be made until Aug. 1st. Jen Llewellyn, the nursery crops specialist has not seen any Japanese beetle adults yet. Expect to see them sometime in the next two weeks.
There has been annual bluegrass weevil damage reported now on golf greens. This insect knocks out the annual bluegrass leaving the creeping bentgrass standing. Small patches of turf turn yellow. If you examine the soil below these areas you will see the white legless weevil in the soil or the thatch in the yellow patches. The damaged turf also pulls out easily.
We are about a week past peak chinch bug egglaying now. I would expect to see the start of chinch bug damage in a couple of weeks in the southwest and in about 2-3 weeks here in the Guelph area.
Again, thanks for phoning the Turf Agriphone for this week. The next agriphone message will be recorded on Fri. July 6,2001. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2001/turf-agrifax-week-12-2001-june-29th-2001.html#sthash.0oMCt4Ev.dpuf
