PLEASE NOTE: The Following Pesticide Recommendations are meant for Excepted Uses (e.g. golf courses and sod farms) under the Cosmetic Pesticide Ban. Only the active ingredients listed under Class 11 pesticides in Ontario Regulation 63/09, can be used on home lawns and sports fields and other non-excepted uses, effective April 22, 2009.
Guess what is in the forecast for this weekend? You got it – rain. And there is a blast of heat and humidity for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday forecasted. After that, there is a return to seasonal temperatures (21°C in the day and low teens in the night). Good luck with any of the management practices that you are trying to perform. Scheduling mowing has been difficult because of rain, wet areas. Trying to apply any fertilizers, pesticides, etc. has also been very challenging.
With this mix of cool and warm weather and all this rain, there are many diseases that are active at the moment. Microdochium patch continues to be very, very active, along with yellow patch on golf courses. Conditions have also been perfect for Pythium root dysfunction and anthracnose basal rot. The predictive models for dollar spot are showing that it will most likely be starting this weekend or early next week.
The conditions over the past week have kept the leaf spot active on Kentucky bluegrass. So far it is just at the leaf spot stage but if we do get hot, humid conditions in the next couple weeks it has set us up for the melting out phase of leaf spot. This is mostly a problem on home lawns and Kentucky bluegrass fairways, roughs and sports fields. On perennial ryegrass and fine fescues, red thread is active.
Annual bluegrass seedhead formation is peaking at the moment in the Guelph area. It is a good time to get a pretty accurate reading on the percent annual bluegrass on your greens. You can also see where all the annual bluegrass is in mixed stands of turf on home lawns, sports fields, sod farms, etc. Remember that once those annual bluegrass plants flower that those tillers will turn yellow and die.
Spring Insect Activity
Grubs will be coming to the end of their lifecycle very soon and will be pupating by early June to mid-June. I think that pupation will be slightly later than normal this year because of all the cold weather.
This is the time of year when June beetle adults start flying. These are large beetles that fly mostly at night and are attracted to light.
If you are contemplating making a larvaecide application for annual bluegrass weevil, this is a good time to do that. It is important, however to wait until soils dry out. The plant phenological indicator for peak adult flights of black turfgrass ataenius (horse chestnut) is in flower at the moment. Preventative applications for areas with a history of BTA damage can be treated once the areas dry out.
There were a few more calls and emails about leatherjackets this week. There are some areas that have been hit very hard with leatherjacket damage. For home lawns there is really no solution to the leatherjacket problem. The good thing is that leatherjacket feeding damage has almost peaked. I would say after next week there should not be more new damage from leatherjackets.
On golf courses feeding damage on greens is rare. If populations are high, there might be damage from birds feeding on the leatherjackets and in some cases that may warrant an insecticide treatment.
Weed control products and timing
Dandelion bloom has stalled a bit because of the cooler weather. It isn’t a sea of puffballs yet, but I expect next week it will be. Once things dry up, we are in the ideal window for post-emergence broadleaf weed control with Fiesta. All of the broadleaf weeds such as dandelions, broad-leaf plantain, narrow-leaf plantain, clover and the winter annuals are all actively growing. We have sprayed Fiesta and Organo-sol this week and so far things are looking good. I will keep you posted with updates over the next couple of weeks.
Once the soil dries out it is a good time to schedule the spring aeration and the first spring fertilizer treatment. We usually recommend that you fertilize towards the end of May/beginning of June.
I appreciate the feedback. You can reach me by phone or email at (519-824-4120 x 52597) or by email at pamela.charbonneau@ontario.ca.
– See more at: https://lawnsavers.com/turf-hotline-2011/turfgrass-management-agriphone-for-may-26-2011.html#sthash.xrpk03w9.dpuf
