| InteractiveTurf
Newsletter |
2003 First Update - It's
Mowing Time
The first mowing of our research green by our new
superintendent, Doug Pool, and inspection by the legendary Carl
Hopphan.
Weather update:
It's over 80 degrees F outside for the second consecutive day
here in Lemont (yesterday), but there is colder air and a chance
of snow (50 degrees and raining today) in the near-term forecast.
It must be springtime in Chicago! We are starting to see some
green leaf tissue in those bleached out, dormant turfs, although
it may take some time for certain creeping bent and Kentucky bluegrass
sods to get growing. Most of the deep frost is out of the soil
now, and soil temperatures at 2 to 4 inches are staying consistently
in the mid 40s to low 50s range. If we could get a couple more
weeks of warm, sunny weather (and some warm rains), turf growth
would kick-in and we would be mowing green leaves instead of brown.
Also, the trees, shrubs, and flower bulbs would "pop"
and it would truly look like spring in norther Illinois - it's
been a long time coming!!!
Most areas of northern and northeastern Illinois not only endured
a cold winter, but are experiencing a significant drought as well.
Since last September, we are as much as 10 inches below normal
precipitation. In February, we received only 15 hundredths of
an inch total precipitation in the metro area, and most places
had only an inch to an inch and a quarter in March. Soil moisture
is very low in many areas coming out of winter, and there has
been some concern about turf injury from winter desiccation. From
what we have observed so far, winter injury has been fairly limited
- and in fact, most winter kill complaints have been associated
with low areas where ice layers formed from rains or snow melt.
Perhaps of greater concern following this drought is the effect
it could have on trees, shrubs, and other perennial plantings.
Sometimes we take for granted that there is enough soil moisture
to maintain the woody perennials; also, often the symptoms of
drought stress don't show until much later. If this dry northern
IL weather pattern continues through April, it may be prudent
to irrigate young trees, shrubs, or other key plantings to ensure
they don't enter early summer under water stress. These plants,
if left under drought stress, would be much more susceptible to
disease and insect damage than well watered ones.
Diseases:
Since there was little significant snow cover in the northern
third of Illinois, very little snow mold diseases occurred. We
have received some reports of pink snow mold (Microdochium patch)
under protective plastic covers, and in low, wet, or shaded areas,
especially that are predominately Poa annua. Here at the
Golf House in Lemont, we noticed a few pink snow mold patches
as we uncovered a portion of our research green from an Evergreen-type
plastic woven cover on March 17th. Yesterday (4/2) here, we noticed
an explosion of pink snow mold activity with about 15 - 20 patches
that have appeared on uncovered turf. Our preventative application
in the fall was a granular PCNB that was put out at probably too
low of a rate, resulting in the breakthrough. With the cool wet
weather forecast for the next few days in the northern IL area,
more pink snow mold outbreaks could be common (for more information
see Pest Bulletin on the home page).
Insects:
Well it is a little early for the insects to be popping up, especially
with the deep frost that we experienced in northern Illinois.
For you southern Illinois and St. Louis folks though, there has
been the first capture of an adult cutworm moth in Pope and Massac
counties, which are at the Kentucky border (see UIUC
Pest Management Newsletter - Early Cutworm Capture)
. This is no cause for alarm yet (start getting concerned when
8-9 are caught per day), but it may signal the start of their
northern migration. From what I have heard from some of you last
year, it was a "banner" year for cutworms, so I will
do my best to stay on top of the situation with these types of
agricultural reports and with your scouting reports.
Weeds:
Since we are passed April 1 and have had a few warm days and
some turf green-up, it is time to start thinking about application
for Poa annua seedhead suppression. Our base 50 growing
degree day model (GDD50>50) for application timing has been
triggered in southern and central Illinois, (hovering over Bloomington),
as more than 50 GDD's have accumulated since early March. We have
had two reports of seeding Poa in Bloomington and Urbana,
but none have been observed yet in Decatur.
In Chicagoland, we are still a week or more away from reaching
the 50+GDD mark, although we have heard some early Proxy + Primo
applications have gone out. Note that in some years, the GDD50
model signals the first application a little too late to catch
the earliest Poa flowers (remember models are just a tool!).
Scouting for early seedhead formation on coarse annual types of
Poa on sunny, southern exposures may be just as accurate.
Also, it could be that early application of Proxy work as well
as a more "targeted" application, since the active ingredient
seems to have a flower suppressing effect for 4-5 weeks. However,
both Proxy and Primo ( and also Embark) are foliar absorbed and
work best on green actively growing tissue. Therefore it wouldn't
make much sense to be treating brown grass - wait until the turf
is green and has been mowed a couple of times . . . (See
the research update for more info on Poa annua seedhead
suppression treatments).
From our research, tank mixes of Proxy (5 fl oz/ 1,000 sq ft)
and Primo (0.13 fl oz/ 1,000 sq ft) appear to be the safest and
most effective choices for applications to bent/Poa mix
putting greens. Since the activity lasts 4-5 weeks, many superintendents
are planning a repeat application in early to mid-May to catch
any later flush of flowering by differing Poa biotypes. Also,
we should point out that the cold, open winter may have had some
effect on the physiology of flowering in Poa, which again
could add to the variability in results that we often see in our
field trials.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Welcome Back!!!
This starts our second big year of this service, and we have
some exciting new developments to bring you. As you may have already
experienced we are sending emails out to users regarding pest
outbreaks. The first couple of these have been mostly for test
purposes but do have some early pest reports stuck in them. As
the season progresses, these emails will get more region-specific,
so I don't clutter your inboxes too much.
The second of our developments is the most exciting to me, and
that is that EVERYONE, including sites without a weather
station, is getting a database this year. Weather data will be
trapped from the nearest weather provider and put into your database
(to see your database
click here). The pest prediction models will be
calculated from this data and presented for your use. In this
database, (although still under a bit of construction), you will
also be able to submit and keep track of your scouting reports,
location of the pest hotspots, and pesticide applications. You
can also log any kind of notes (i.e. drainage projects, overall
turf condition) in this database. Two important notes . . . this
database is totally PRIVATE, therefore no sales reps or
media will be bugging you based on this information. Also it is
totally up to you how useful this database can be, since it is
your scouting reports that are the foundation for this program.
For example, I would like to see an email, IM, or phone call
that states " I saw Pest 'X' on 16 fairway, and I applied
Pesticide 'X' at the 2 oz rate on greens, tees, and fairways."
This type of record will serve us in a myriad of ways. For one,
I can validate the pest prediction models from the scouting report
and also from knowing what preventative application you may have
made. Two, I can communicate this report to your region. Three,
in later years we can get an AutoCAD or other type of map of your
course, and actually target your scouting efforts by showing what
portion of your course historically has the first outbreaks of
a certain pest. Four, we can track the control window of your
pesticide applications.
This is just a sampling of the ways we will be using this information
to help enhance IPM practices with the IT Program, and make this
the program for the future.
Thanks for your support of this, as well as all of our research
programs,
Randy Kane
CDGA
Director of Turfgrass Programs
Midwest Golf House
11855 Archer Ave
Lemont, IL 60439
630-257-8126
Lee Miller
CDGA
Manager of Turfgrass Research
Midwest Golf House
11855 Archer Ave
Lemont, IL 60439
630-257-2005 x.111
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