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InteractiveTurf IPM update:
Our typical, unpredictable spring weather continues to be the story in Illinois.
Large swings in temperature from a very cold early March (-7 F on Mar 4) to a very hot stretch last week (upper 80s F on Apr 14-18) shows the extremes we can go to here.
This heat wave brought many perennial plants out of the ground (my hostas are up), and started the spring flowering cycle of Poa annua and other grasses.
It is possible that crabgrass and other summer annual weeds started to germinate as well, especially in central and southern Illinois locations.
(See Research Update for info on Poa seedhead suppression.)
Now, cold winds and rainy conditions have moved back in from Canada (just in time for the MAGCS meeting at Tamarack), and below freezing temperatures are forecast for this morning’s low (Apr 23).
With the movement of these warm and cold fronts, some areas have received over 2" of rain in April, which will help relieve some near-drought conditions that have been developing since last fall.
Several days of cool, cloudy, and misty rains (or fog) are very conducive to Microdochium patch (=pink snow mold); look for small copper colored spots, possibly with a gray, wilted ring around the outside edge.
Poa annua is most susceptible, but creeping bents and fine fescues are also susceptible.
(See Pest Update (snow molds) for more info.)
Bookkeeping update:
A couple of weeks ago we e-mailed a summary of the program to potential users of InteractiveTurf in northern and central Illinois.
A sign-up form for subscribers for the April 2002 - March 2003 year was attached as a Word file.
If you haven’t already, please let us know as soon as possible if you plan to participate in IT this year.
Also, if you didn’t receive the original e-mail or the attached file, let us know and we will resend the e-mail or send via snail mail or fax with the information describing the program, and the response form.
Invoices will start to go out later this week to the 50+ superintendents who have responded so far.
This year, the main body of the website will be "password protected" for those who sign-up!
Weather data and pest alert update:
Currently, we have 14 sites in the Chicagoland area set up to send daily weather data to us via an email attachment.
A few of these sites (about 4) have software glitches that we are working to correct.
We also have additional sites in Peoria (2), Bloomington (1), Urbana (2), Springfield (1), and Decatur (1).
We are targeting a few sites in St. Louis to further broaden the monitoring region.
We will purchase two weather stations from Spectrum Technologies, which we will place at Midwest Golf House Short Course and at the Cantigny GC experimental green.
These stations will contribute to our Chicagoland weather database.
Spectrum Tech has agreed to extend a discount to IT subscribers for purchase of a weather station, provided, of course, you send us your weather data!
For more information on the discount, contact Lee Miller or call Mike Thurow at Spectrum Technologies (1-800-248-8873).
If you are not feeding us weather data this first season, others around you will be, and the service will still be of great value to you.
However, we still need your participation by submitting pest alerts!
Your pest alerts will be matched with local weather data, giving us a pest activity database of your course and those close by.
We will archive this information over time and develop a historical pest occurrence database for your course, and develop statistical computer models for future pest predictions.
Pest alerts can be sent to us in a variety of ways (email, submission form on IT website, phone) and are the most essential part of this service, making it truly interactive.
You will be our eyes in the field; effectively validating our predictive models and allowing us to refine them to better suit our region and, most importantly, your site.
We look forward to a productive launch of the program, and thank you for your continued support.
Lee Miller
(630) 257-2005 x.111
lmiller@cdga.org
Randy Kane
630-257-8126
rkane@cdga.org
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