Welcome to the “Turf Hotline” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for the week of June 30- July 7, 2000.
We have had more rain again this week, with some heavy rains in some areas. Temperatures have been moderate to cool with cool nights. Soils are saturated on many golf courses making it next to impossible to get on with equipment to spray for diseases. Sod farms have also been negatively impacted by all the rain. They are finding it difficult to get on the fields to mow and harvest.
Dollar spot activity has been moderate over the last week, but golf course superintendents are finding it difficult to get on to spray very wet fairways. Leaf spot and “melting out” continues to be a problem on Kentucky bluegrass lawns. Symptoms are either general thinning or fist size clumps of wilted turf. Look for lesions on the crowns of the plants to verify that it is “melting out”. To help the turf recover, raise the mowing height and fertilize lightly. Red thread also continues to be a problem on perennial ryegrass and fine fescues. This can be treated with nitrogen fertilizers. There have been a few isolated reports of take-all patch from new bentgrass greens. Heritage is now registered for preventative and curative control of take-all patch in Ontario. Still more reports of anthracnose basal rot. Again, this is often worse after topdressing or verticutting. Wounding the turf provides an entrance into the turf plant for this disease organism. Dr. Tom Hsiang is conducting an anthracnose basal rot survey to try to determine how big of a problem it is in Ontario. If you do have the disease, please consider sending him a sample and filling out the survey. It can be found at www.uoguelph.ca/~thsiang/turf/survey99/survey00.htm or give my office a call and I can fax you one. My office no. is (519) 824-4120 x 2597.
There have been heavy European chafers flights throughout the week. They fly on warm evenings at dusk. The adults do not feed but they mate in trees and the females will lay their eggs in the turf below the trees. The best time for Merit applications is during European chafer egg laying so for those properties that have had a history of European chafer damage, you should consider applying Merit anytime between now and August 1st. The Japanese beetles in the Niagara area are pupating now and will be emerging very soon. Black turfgrass Ataenius are still feeding. Curative controls may be warranted if populations exceed 50 per 0.1 m2. Hairy chinch bugs have just passed the peak egglaying so expect to start to see damage in 3 weeks or so. Insects do not like all this wet weather, so the damage from chinch bugs might be minimal this year if we continue to get a lot of rain.
I have had many calls about off colour turf. With all the rain, nitrogen fertilizers are very prone to leaching, especially in sandy soils. Also, when soils are saturated the turf plants are not able to take up nitrogen. Either or both of these might be a problem in some areas.
The “Solving Turf Problems” workshop is full for 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 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. July 7, 2000. – See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2000/-turf-agrifax-week-14-2000-june-30-2000.html#sthash.RseD8VME.dpuf
