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This is the first installment of the year 2000 IPM Update for golf course turf managers in northern and central Illinois.
I will post turf pest updates/alerts toward the end of each week for the rest of the summer, and I will include information regarding detection and control of problematic pests, especially if the problem is "new" or difficult to manage.
To make the newsletter and updates useful, I will need feedback from recipients regarding diseases or other pests that you have observed, and a short note on what action was taken to control the problem.
Diseases
Spring Disease Roundup - For most of the area, winter and early spring diseases (eg snow molds) were very mild to non-existent.
Late winter and early spring was much warmer and dryer than normal, which is not conducive to cool weather fungi (insects maybe!).
There were a few scattered reports of Microdochium patch (Microdochium nivale - same fungus as pink snow mold) and yellow patch (Rhizoctonia cerealis) in March and April.
Current Disease Activity - Most of May was a little cool and wet, but there was notable dollar spot activity later in the month, when we had a few warm and humid days.
This last week has seen a typical weather pattern for northern Illinois; temperatures have ranged from approx. 38 F to 92 F in just a few days.
In mixed bent/Poa fairways, it looks like dollar spot definitely hits any Poa trivialis that's around first, then moves to the bents.
Insects
Rumor has it that our mild winter will be conducive to bad bug attacks this summer, but I'm not too sure if anything is different at this point.
I heard some complaints about animals digging up sod looking for over-wintering white grubs, and there have been a few black turfgrass Ataenius adults flying around -- but nothing out of the ordinary for early June.
There has been some cutworm damage reported during the last couple of weeks as well; activity of cutworms may pick up soon as the warmer weather moves into the area.
Ants and earthworm damage continues to be a problem on greens and fairways.
Earthworms are not insects and will not appear on the label of a pesticide (they are supposed to be good guys), but several insecticides and fungicides irritate worms enough that casting on the soil surface can be suppressed.
Ant control, especially on sand greens, continues to be a difficult problem.
A couple of new baits for ant control that are slow-acting stomach poisons may provide some long term control.
One product contains a low concentration of abamectin as the AI (Advance ant bait), the other consists of 0.9 % hydramethylnon (Maxforce).
The idea is to use a bait that worker/forager ants will carry underground into the colony and kill the queen and the entire colony - but you will have to be patient for these to work.
If anyone can find these products or has some experience using them, please let me know how it works out.
Weeds
For now, the main concern seems to be moss on putting greens.
I have seen quite a bit already this spring on many golf courses.
Maybe the moss liked the mild winter better than the insects! I wish there was an easy answer for moss control, but it is hard to get a good control when we don't really know what the underlying problems are that lead to the moss.
I believe there are some serious nutrient problems that appear at the surface of sand greens (or sand topdressed - layered greens).
Bentgrass thins out a little under these conditions and the moss moves in to take over the "niche".
Some success in controlling the moss has been achieved using witches brews or soaps like Dawn Ultra, but I think the problem will recur if the underlying fertility/salts problems are not addressed.
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