Welcome to the “Turf Management Updates” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. To accommodate our new podcasts, I am changing the schedule a bit on the “Turf Updates”. They will be recorded on Thurs. afternoons and posted on the OMAFRA website sometime on Friday mornings. This message is for the week of June 7 – 14, 2007.
What crazy weather we had last week. We went from hot, hazy and humid with a Pythium outbreak to wearing toques and gloves the next day. Today there is another heat wave, but it is supposed to end today with seasonal temperatures for next week, which means the highs are hovering around 25ºC. Apart from the chance of thunder showers today, there is no rain in the forecast for the rest of the week. This is going to bring on some drought stress symptoms on non-irrigated turf.
Diseases
The shock for me over last weekend was the outbreak of Pythium blight in various parts of the province. We even had an outbreak here at GTI. Luckily, the weather changed abruptly and stopped it dead in its tracks without much turf loss. Of course, dollar spot has also been very active and I am sure most superintendents have started their dollar spot control by now. One disease that we should expect to see in the next few weeks is basal rot anthracnose. Annual bluegrass has just finished setting seed and is in a weakened state from that and the hot and dry conditions, so it may succumb to disease over the next little while. Just a reminder to send any unknown turf problems to the GTI Turf Diagnostics.
Insects
Just when I thought the grub calls were finished, I got a couple of calls about Japanese beetle grubs. The calls were all from eastern Ontario where they are a pretty new phenomenon. There is really nothing that can be done at this time except to apply Merit preventatively on the areas that are infested. There have also been reports of June beetle adults flying around. This will probably continue for another couple of weeks. There have been a few black turfgrass ataenius stragglers found over the last week, but the peak adult flights are over. I do have a request for anyone who has seen large numbers of adult flights this spring. There is a company that is looking for golf course fairway sites to do some insecticide trials to control black turfgrass ataenius. If you have seen large numbers of adults on your golf course and if you are interested in participating in an insecticide study, please let me know. I tried this last year for a European chafer grub trial and did get a volunteer cooperator and the result was a very successful insecticide trial which is going to lead to the registration of a new product for grub control. Any cooperation would be appreciated.
The GTI Turf Diagnostics Lab had a homeowner sample with some turfgrass scale damage. The damage is usually evident in the spring when patches of grass fail to green up. The scale nymphs feed on the crowns of grass plants all fall and by spring clumps of plants are dead. These nymphs become adult scales and produce eggs in a cottony mass during the month of June. The eggs hatch into crawlers, which are generally found in grass around July 1st. They are the size of a head of a pin and are often only noticed because homeowners walking through their lawns will find their shoes covered in red dots, which are the nymphs. There are no pesticides registered in Ontario to control turfgrass scale.
Leatherjacket damage has probably peaked now. When we were studying them intensively a few years ago, we found that they stop feeding in about mid-June and went into a resting stage. There have been reports of extensive damage to home lawns and golf course greens this spring.
Weeds
We are now into the ideal post-emergence weed control window. It is best to wait until more seasonal temperatures next week. Of course, it is important to be aware of any by-laws restricting the use of any kind of herbicide on home lawns.
I forgot to mention last week about all the seedheads in home lawns. Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass will form seed heads this time of year. Some of this is related to weather conditions and some of it is genetic. Some Kentucky bluegrass cultivars are prolific producers of seedheads. Once the seedheads are mowed, it gives that grass a yellow bleached appearance which is a bit unsightly.
Now is the perfect time for an application of fertilizer. It is also good to fertilize after a herbicide treatment so that the turf can fill in the voids where the dead weeds are.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2007/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-june-8-2007.html#sthash.gJyvj9wo.dpuf
