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 6 – July 13, 2001.
The temperatures have been cool since Canada Day and the forecast locally is for things to warm up this Monday to the high 20’s again. There isn’t much rain in the forecast.
As far as diseases go, over the last week dollar spot started in earnest. The two other golf course diseases that have been prevalent over the last week are summer patch and take-all patch. There is very little that you can do curatively for these diseases except to syringe daily. Even though it hasn’t been hot, the drying winds will suck the moisture out of the grass plants quickly. For take-all patch you can use acidifying fertilizers like ammonium sulphate to help control the disease. If temperatures do reach the high 20’s combined with high humidity, there could be some brown patch and anthracnose developing. If the humidity is very high with high day and night time temperatures, there may be a risk of Pythium blight.
Some areas received a lot of rain from thundershowers last week, but some areas did not. The areas that did not will still have turf that is showing signs of drought stress and may be going dormant. There has also been some high temperature injury to turf. This happens when turf that is actively growing experiences extremely hot temperatures. Any kind of traffic on grass during the hot days with drought stresssed turf resulted in tire marks, etc.. The shallow rooted species such as rough bluegrass and creeping bentgrass were browning off in home lawns. The only disease reported lately on home lawns is necrotic ring spot.
The cool weather has slowed down European chafer adult flights. I am expecting them to get heavier for a week or so when the warm weather returns. Japanese beetle adults began their flights in the Niagara peninsula last week. Japanese beetle flights will continue for several weeks now. This is the ideal time now for Merit applications. Just be sure to make sure it is watered in.
There may still be some annual bluegrass weevil damage occurring 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.
No reports of hairy chinch bug nymphs yet. I would expect to see some in the next couple of weeks. There have been some people who are confusing drought problems with hairy chinch bug damage, but it is still too early to see any chinch bug damage since the next generation of nymphs have not yet been spotted in the turf.
Again, thanks for phoning the Turf Agriphone for this week. The next agriphone message will be recorded on Fri. July 13,2001. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2001/-turf-agrifax-week-13-2001-july-6th-2001.html#sthash.MyPExeFE.dpuf
