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Turfgrass Management Agriphone for July 8, 2005

Welcome to the "Turf Agriphone" sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This message is being recorded for the week of July 8-21, 2005. This message is for more than one week because I will be out of the country attending the International Turfgrass Research Conference in Wales. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Weather

Well, the heat is still on. The forecast for the next few days is for more hot and dry. The only rain in the forecast for that period is thundershowers and we all know that they are scattered and you certainly can’t count on them. After the next 3-4 days it is supposed to cool off.

Diseases
Still not much disease reported over the last week. The majority of the samples submitted to GTI Turf Diagnostics have been summer patch, take-all patch and anthracnose. Dollar spot is moderately active on golf course greens. The humidity just hasn’t been there for diseases such as brown patch and Pythium blight.

Insects
European chafer adult flights have been going on for about three weeks now. Fights will probably start to taper off now that we are pasted the peak. At the moment, the flights are beginning at about 9:00 – 9:15 pm and continuing for about 20 minutes to half an hour.

Japanese beetle adults are flying in the Windsor/Sarnia area and expect them to be flying in the Niagara region soon.

Hairy chinch bug nymphs are developing quickly now with the heat and dry conditions weather. There are reports of the nymphs being found in lawns, especially in the sunny locations. It is critical to check lawns during a drought to see if chinch bugs are there. If they are, it will probably be necessary to treat.

There have been more reports of cutworm activity this week. If you aren’t sure if you have them or not, you can monitor using 4 litres of water and 15 mls of dishwashing soap to flush them out of the greens.

You still might see some turfgrass scale crawlers emerging this week. They are usually found around Canada Day. They are the size of a head of a pin and are red in colour. They stick to shoes, pets, socks, etc. and are spread that way. The crawlers grow into nymphs that feed all summer, fall and early spring. They then mature into a typical hemispherical scale insect.

There have been more reports this week of annual bluegrass weevil damage on golf courses.

Heat and Drought Stress

There have been lots and lots of lawn problems because of the heat and dry conditions. Some things to remember – it is not a good idea to mow turf or have any other traffic on it during the heat of the day when temperatures hover around 30ºC, especially if the turf is under drought stress. The result will look like you have applied Roundup to the tires of your lawn mower. This will definitely cause some temporary turf damage.

Turf that is watered too infrequently is browning off due to heat stress as well. This is usually small to large patches of turf that die. If you are going to be watering turf it will probably require a bit more frequent watering than once a week during this heat wave to look good. The high temperatures and the winds will dry out the turf very quickly. These dry patches will come back when cooler temperatures return.

One other thing that you should not do if the turf is dormant is fertilize. It is important however to keep monitoring for insect pests even if the turf is dormant.

Another question that many of you may be getting is “How long can the turf last without water?” The best answer is – usually 4-6 weeks. If the dry conditions last longer than that it is a good idea to try to water 2.5 cm, every 4 weeks.

This is a repeat reminder from last week. At this point it is probably wise to suspend any herbicide treatments, this includes broadleaf and post-emergence crabgrass treatments. Also, cultural practices should be suspended until it is cooler. Topdressing, verticutting and all of those cultural practices are very stressful for turf at the best of times and may just push turf over the edge when the temperatures are hovering above 30ºC.

Thanks for phoning the turf agriphone message for this week. The next agriphone message will be recorded on Thurs. July 21, 2005

Turfgrass Management Agriphone for September 18, 2006

Welcome to the "Turf Agriphone" sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This message is being recorded for the period of Sept. 18-29, 2006. I have taken a two week hiatus from recording the turf agriphone message. Just to let you know, this is the second to last update for the season. The last update will be on Fri. Sept. 29, 2006.

Diseases

Weatherwise, we have had some nice dry weather, but the forecast is for six days of rain out of the next 14 days. Temperatures are forecast to be around the seasonal normals, which is about 16-18ºC. This wet, cool weather will certainly spur on some fall disease development. On the fall disease front, dollar spot is still active on both close mowed and fairway height turf. Fusarium patch activity has just begun. Another diseases which likes similar conditions if yellow patch or cool season brown patch. We are seeing it on shady greens that have long periods of leaf wetness. Red thread has also been very active. There are still symptoms evident from necrotic ring spot. Rust has slowed down now for the season.

Insects

We have had a good two week window now of heavy adult European crane fly flights in the Guelph area. Flights began about a week ago in the Niagara Peninsula. The adults seem to congregate in shady wet areas. They definitely prefer flying on calm days. The adult females need to lay eggs in wet soil for the eggs to survive. I would predict that with all the rain up until now and the rain in the forecast that there is a good chance that we will have heavy leatherjacket populations this fall and next spring.

European chafer grubs and Japanese beetle grubs are developing quickly now and are in late second and early third instar. One good thing is that turf roots are very abundant and deep at the moment with the cool weather and all the moisture. It will take a lot of grub feeding to devour all these healthy turf roots. It is quite possible that we will not see much grub damage this fall even though the grubs are there. We have had cutworm feeding over the last couple of weeks and sod webworm damage is starting to show up on some home lawns.

Weeds

We are approaching the optimum time for broadleaf herbicide applications. Research has found that if you wait until October, especially after a hard frost, the hard to kill broadleaf weeds such as ground ivy are more likely to be controlled.

By now the early fall fertilizer application should have been made. This should be followed up by a late fall fertilization at the end of October to the beginning of November.

Just a note also that we have passed the fall seeding window. We recommend that seeding be done between mid-Aug to mid-September.

Thanks to everyone who attended our August Turf Research Field day. It was a great success and we received lots of positive feedback about it.

Thanks for phoning the turf agriphone message for this week. The final turf agriphone message for the season will be recorded on Fri. Sept. 29, 2006.

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