Welcome to the “Turf Agriphone” sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This message is being recorded for the week of May 19 – 26, 2006.
Apart from a good start on Saturday of the Victoria Day long weekend, the weather is supposed to be nasty for the remainder of the weekend. The forecast for the upcoming week is a bit more seasonal with highs around 20ºC and lows in the 5-10 degree mark. There is little rain in the forecast for the upcoming week which will give soils some time to drain after all the rain that we have had to date.
Diseases:
There has been a lot of activity in the GTI Turf Diagnostics lab over the last week. The diseases that have been diagnosed are Pythium root disfunction, yellow patch, Fusarium patch, necrotic ring spot and take-all patch. A sample had some annual bluegrass roots with runner hyphae on them, which indicates that summer patch is developing at the moment. If you have had this disease in the past, you may want to consider treating preventatively for this disease now. With this current weather pattern, we will probably continue to see Fusarium patch symptoms and yellow patch. When temperatures warm up, both these diseases will slow down. You may still want to treat for Fusarium patch if you have disease activity at the moment because it can still cause damage. Yellow patch causes much less damage and will usually cease to be a problem with drier, warmer conditions. Regarding take-all patch, in Ontario, there is no fungicide that is currently registered for use on take-all patch. There are some cultural practices which can help with this disease. They are:
· Fertilize with acidifying fertilizers such as ammonium sulphate and avoid nitrate forms of nitrogen.
· Make sure that phosphorus and potash levels are adequate.
· Reduce thatch and promote deep rooting by aerating.
· Avoid excessive irrigation.
· If soils are low in manganese, apply manganese in April or October at a rate of 2.2kg/ha annually. Since temperatures are still cool, manganese can be applied during early May. The manganese should be applied in high spray volumes to get the manganese below the thatch. See the link below for more information on rates, manganese sources and timing.
If you do have disease samples that you want diagnosed, you can send them to the GTI Turf Diagnostics. Information on this service is available at www.uoguelph.ca/GTI/turf_diag.
Insects:
As predicted last week, the heavy rains flushed leatherjackets out of home lawn turf and into driveways, etc.. I also am starting to get reports of leatherjackets damage showing up. I know that there is a lot of frustration in the lawn care sector because there are no products registered for leatherjacket control on home lawns. We are currently doing trials on new active ingredients as well as nematodes to determine their efficacy against leatherjackets. There is also a minor use label expansion request that has gone in to PMRA to add home lawn control of leatherjackets to the Sevin T&O label. I will keep you posted on these developments throughout the season. For more information on leatherjackets, follow the link below.
I am still looking for adult crane flies. We are interested to find out if we have the common crane fly (Tipula oleracea) here in Ontario. It has been reported in British Columbia, New York State and Quebec. So far we have not confirmed if it is present in Ontario. It can be distinguished from the European crane fly by its life cycle. Adult common crane flies fly in April and May. If you are seeing some adult crane flies this spring, please let me know and I can arrange to get a sample from you.
This blast of cooler weather and rain has slowed down the overwintering adult insect activity. There is still time for preventative control of black turfgrass ataenius if you have seen large adult flights or if you have had a history of damage on your golf course. European chafer grubs are going to pupating soon. Once temperatures heat up again next week we will see more adult insects moving into the turf.
Weeds:
On the weed front, forsythia blooms have dropped in the Guelph area. Now that there is adequate soil moisture, once the soils heat up again, we should start to see crabgrass germinating in open areas. We are probably a week away from it germinating in established turf. Because if this, the window for corn gluten meal products is almost over and may be over already in some of the more southerly parts of the province. If you are planning on using Dimension there is probably still a 2-3 week window left. Dimension can be used up to the 1-3 leaf stage before tillering. We encourage that pre-emergence crabgrass products only be used in areas with a history of crabgrass infestation.
We are now in the ideal window for broadleaf herbicide applications. The ideal time for dandelion control is when they are in the puffball stage. I have had a call from the Hamilton/Ancaster area about the broadleaf weed garlic mustard. I am not sure how widespread it is. It seems to have moved from wooded areas into lawn areas and is causing concern. It is an annual, winter annual or biennial. It is a prolific seed producer and produces seed in June. Now is a good time to control it so that is doesn’t set seed next month. Information on it and its control can be found at the related link below.
Annual bluegrass seedhead formation is probably at 50-75% at the moment. Remember that after annual bluegrass plants set seed they will die off, so turf stands with true annual types of annual bluegrass will look pretty poor over the next couple of weeks.
Fertility
Turf that hasn’t been fertilized yet this season should receive some fertilizer in the next two weeks. There has been good root growth so far this spring. Now that the roots are growing well, it is a good idea to fertilize turf soon so that you can promote a dense turf stand. It is also good to fertilize after a herbicide treatment so that the turf can fill in the voids where the dead weeds are. With all the rain, turf is definitely looking like it could use a shot of nitrogen.
Again, thanks for phoning the turf agriphone message for this week. The next agriphone message will be recorded on Friday May 26.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2006/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-may-19-2006.html#sthash.Bb5KPwgv.dpuf
