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 20 - 28, 2006.

There was a lot of heat and humidity last week just as the weatherman predicted.  The only rain came as thundershowers and appeared very spotty.  The forecast is not as hot as last weekend, but still temperatures will be in the high 20’s and night time temperatures will be around 20ºC.  This is going to keep the disease pressure pretty high for the next week.

At the GTI Turf Diagnostics this week Katerina Jordan and Erica Gunn have diagnosed Summer patch, take-all patch and brown patch.  There was also a sample of Kentucky bluegrass with Ascochyta leaf blight.  The characteristics of this disease is leaf blades that die back uniformly from the tip and the entire leaf blade can be affected.  Periods of high humidity and frequent irrigation favour this disease.   With the forecast above the disease pressure for all the diseases above will continue. 

Out in the field I have also observed red thread after the rains last week and on irrigated turf.  In spite of the high heat the dollar spot does not seem to have slowed down yet.  If you get disease developing and you aren’t sure what you have you can send samples that you want diagnosed to the GTI Turf Diagnostics.  Information on this service is available at www.uoguelph.ca/GTI/turf_diag    

Japanese beetle adults are out now all the areas that they are a problem in.  Applications of Merit can still be made for another couples of weeks.  Be sure to water Merit in within 24 hours.   For lawn care operators in the City of Toronto there is information posted on their web site about the use of Merit.  See the related links below.

Hairy chinch bug nymphs are growing rapidly in this heat.  Damage is really starting to show up in a lot of areas now.  Now is definitely a good time to be monitoring for them and to treat if high populations are found.  Still lots of sod webworm adults flying around.  This makes me think that we may see a lot of damage from the caterpillars in mid-late September. 

We have a large infestation here at the GTI on our research greens of what I think is black cutworm, but I am not positive.  The bottom line is that these caterpillars are causing a lot of turf damage.  I will bring them over to our insect systematist  for identification next week to make certain we know what they are.

Crabgrass has really exploded since the rainfall just over a week ago.  Some of it can still be treated successfully with Dimension if it is at the 1-3 leaf stage.  If it is larger than that, spot treatments with Acclaim will be the best control at this time.

Another turf problem that has been brought to my attention over the past week is lots of seed stalks on stands of perennial ryegrasses.  The cultivars that are most often used in seed mixtures are picked because they produce a lot of seed and that makes them cheaper to produce.  The down side is that they produce seedheads when they are planted as turf  also.  The stemmy seed stalks should disappear after a few more mowings and that will greatly improve the look and the quality of your perennial ryegrass turf stands.

Mark your calendars for the GTI Turf Research Field Day on Thurs. Aug. 24th, 2006.  This is a big year for us with two new turf faculty (Dr. Eric Lyons and Dr. Katerina Jordan) conducting research at the GTI site.  There are also many product evaluation trials to see as well as moss control research, beet juice extract research to mention a few.  It is definitely a must see if you are a turf manager.  There is information about the field day on the GTI web site.  See the related link below.

Again, thanks for phoning the turf agriphone message for this week.  The next agriphone message will be recorded on Friday July 28, 2006.