Welcome to the 10th edition of the “Turf Management Report” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for Aug. 12, 2010.
Past weather and the forecast for the upcoming week
Apart from a few days last week, the weather pattern has been hot and humid now for a long stretch and the forecast is for more of the same through until next Monday Aug. 16th. The temperatures are supposed to go down slightly and so is the humidity so that the humidex is in the low 30’s instead of the high 30’s. There are thundershowers in the forecast for Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday. The low humidity it not going to be good for turf that has very few roots left. A few days of low humidity and a stiff breeze will just add further stress.
Turf on golf courses is really just hanging on for dear life at the moment. It has simply been too hot for cool season turfgrasses. Between the high day and night temperatures and the high soil temperatures, turf is just not doing too well. You throw heavy disease pressure into the mix and it is not a good scenario. This is not the time for heroic measures, it is the time to sit tight and wait for cooler weather before you consider any cultural practices or overseeding.
Non-irrigated turf is starting to go dormant and there is not significant rainfall in the forecast so the stress on turf will continue.
The new disease of the week is anthracnose foliar blight . It seems to have come on strong over the last week. I expect that is it just an indicator or how stressed the annual bluegrass is and the anthracnose is the straw that broke the camels back. Brown patch symptoms have slowed down, but if we get some thundershowers, they may flair up again. Even though the nights are hot, there has not been a lot of dew over the last few days and that is helping keep the foliar diseases in check. Dollar spot was very active over the past week, but with the really hot night temperatures and no rain, it is probably going to slow down a bit. There is still a lot of summer patch noticeable out there and more symptoms are developing all the time.
Insects
Japanese beetle adult flights are waning. There are only a few stragglers out there now, but people have been reporting much higher than normal Japanese beetle populations and lots of damage to trees and shrubs. We are just out of the window for preventative treatment of grubs on golf courses, so if you do treat now you may not get the control you expect.
For insects, the insect of the week is definitely hairy chinch bug. The hot, dry conditions have been perfect for hairy chinch bugs and there is lots of damage visible now. I have had a few more calls from the field about hairy chinch bug damage. I wish that there was a product to recommend for the treatment of hairy chinch bug under the cosmetic pesticide ban, but there isn’t anything that can be recommended except to irrigate if possible and to overseed damaged areas sometime in the next month.
There has been a bit of black cutworm damage this week. The caterpillars are massive at the moment, so no wonder that we are seeing damage. They aren’t present in high numbers so that is a blessing.
I was chatting with a colleague in her office early this morning and noticed a mating pair of crane fly adults. This marks the beginning of the adult crane fly flights. This is early. Usually we start seeing them in the first week of Sept. European chafer grubs are developing and are now in the late first or early second instar. If the weather patterns continue the way they have, then it could turn out to be a banner year for grubs as well as chinch bugs.
I am still recommending not to treat with Fiesta again this week. It is hot, turf is dormant and it is not recommended to apply Fiesta in these conditions. The same applies to Sarritor. We need to wait a couple of weeks until things cool off and get a bit wetter.
Crabgrass is flowering now and even it looks drought stressed. Any areas where the turf had thinned from heat stress are now covered in crabgrass because of the tropic like weather that we had a few weeks ago. At this point, all you can do is make a note of the affected areas and either wait until the first frost and reseed with one of the cool season grass species or apply corn gluten meal next spring.
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