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Weather Review
Continuing record to near-record cold temperatures, along with cloudy, rainy days have slowed the growth and development of bentgrasses, especially on greens.
Many biotypes of bent will show different color responses after recent cold, frosty nights.
We have seen everything from yellow to purple to reddish brown patches of bent, with some thinning of the shoot density.
Fertility (including Fe applications) and available sunlight will cause variability in this response as well.
For more information, see the ITF Turf Tip written by Luke Cella.
One word of caution on fertilizing putting greens: do not try to stimulate bentgrass color responses at this time with too much Nitrogen (! especially slow release N !); the fertility will not "release" and/or plants will not absorb it while soil and air temps are colder than normal.
If we have a rapid warm-up a few days (or weeks) down the road, excess N may release all at once, causing excessive leaf growth and reduced putting quality.
Heavy rains have fallen in central and southern Illinois, causing extensive flooding in many areas.
Some downstate regions have received as much as 18-20 inches of rain since early April.
Water-logged soils cause many problems, including more compaction problems once golf carts and mower traffic resumes on wet sites.
Once the soil dries down, it may be necessary to core aerify soils where compaction has occurred after flooding.
Disease update
We have seen some cool weather brown patch type symptoms, which could be caused by either Rhizoctonia cerealis or R. zeae.
Other basidiomycete fungi could be involved as well, with symptoms ranging from a fairy ring looking patch to a more scalloped, or uneven expanding circle or patch.
Click here to see our current pest alert about springtime Rhizoctonia patches.
Cool and wet conditions in April and May also favor the development of Take-all Patch on creeping bentgrass, although the symptoms usually don’t develop for several more weeks (early to mid-June, continuing into July).
Take-all has been limited to new courses or newly renovated sites for the most part, but you will occasionally see it on older, more established swards of bentgrass - especially following spring weather like we are having this year.
Weeds
It has been about a month since Poa annua seedhead suppression trials were initiated at three sites in the western suburbs.
It looks like there is a 50-70% reduction in flowering using the Proxy/Primo tank mix in our trials.
Some users have reported very good results with this tank mix, while others have been less impressed.
Due to the weird weather patterns of the last 4-5 weeks, results could be more variable this year than in "normal" years.
Also, it looks like most of our treatments were too late (DRAT!) to catch the earliest seeding biotypes (most of which look like the coarse, annual biotypes of Poa)...
It has been a great year for dandelions and other spring flowering annual and perennial weeds.
Most of you have treated for dandelions, clover, etc, and hopefully will see some good results.
Don’t forget that many herbicides will be less effective when applied at cold air temperatures, since the weeds have slower growth and will not take-up the herbicide and translocate it as quickly as when the weather is warmer...
Insects
We have heard few reports of insect sightings, except for a few small, black beetles crawling around on greens.
These are probably not Ataenius at this point, except possibly in central and southern regions of the state.
Program Update
We are near a full subscription level for this year (60 users), thanks to all of you for your continued support of the program.
Invoices have been mailed over the last 2-3 weeks.
Be sure to check the website often for research updates and pest observations.
Also, don’t forget that your observations and feedback are critical to the success of the program - share your pest sightings with us so we can pass the information on to all users of InteractiveTurf.
Click on the ‘Submit pest activity / weather data’ link on the home page!
Or, just send an email to us to report a pest problem or other observation.
We will be moving to new web-hosting shortly to support the database development and password protection of the site.
Lee Miller
(630) 257-2005 x.111
lmiller@cdga.org
Randy Kane
630-257-8126
rkane@cdga.org
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