The October issue of Golf Course Management features not just one, but two Kansas superintendents. You can check it out in the online edition. Here is the link to the October Issue of Golf Course Management.
Mike Boaz is featured on page 20 and Matt Gourlay is feature on pages 54-56. Great job guys!
I love peonies! I’m lucky to have a neighbor down the street with an amazing display every spring.
Peonies do need some attention, though, including cutting them back. One reason to cut them back is to remove leaves infected with “peony measles.” By removing infecting the leaves from the site you can disrupt the life cycle. The fungus survives year-to-year in infected leaves, so removing them reduces infection risk next year.
(Photo by Ward Upham)
Here are some tips from Ward Upham from the Kansas Horticulture News:
Cut peony foliage back to the ground if this hasn’t been done already. Compost or discard foliage. Fertilize peonies twice a year — in the spring shortly before new growth appears and then again in the fall after the plants have been cut back. A total of 1.5 to 2 ounces (3 to 4 tablespoons) of a 1-1-1 fertilizer such as a 10-10-10 or 13-13-13 per plant per application should be used. This amounts to 3 to 4 ounces of fertilizer per year. If a soil test reveals adequate levels of phosphorus and potassium, use a lawn fertilizer such as a 29-5-4, 27-3-3 or something similar, but cut the rate to 1/3 of the above rate. In other words apply ½ to 3/4 ounce (1 to 1.5 tablespoons) per plant. The lawn fertilizer should not be a “weed and feed.”
Never apply fertilizer directly on the center of the peony as the buds (eyes) may be damaged. Rather, place the fertilizer in a band from 8 to 18 inches from the center of the plant. Water the fertilizer in so the plant can take it up.
Winter protection of herbaceous peonies is only necessary the first winter after planting to prevent alternate freezing and thawing from lifting plants out of the soil. A couple of inches of mulch should be sufficient. Any organic material that does not mat down will work and should be applied after the ground freezes. Avoid using leaves that will mat together. Remove the covering before growth begins in the spring.
The less common tree peonies have woody stems like deciduous shrubs and should not be cut back to the ground or pruned in the fall. Collect the shed leaves and place in the compost pile this fall. Though tree peonies are hardy to Zone 4, they do benefit from a light mulching over winter. Also, it is recommended that tree peonies be fertilized during November to get the plants off to a good start next spring. It is best to take a soil test to see what nutrients are needed. If the soil needs phosphorus and potassium, use a complete fertilizer (such as 10-10-10, 9-9-6, etc.) at the rate of 2.5 pounds per 100 square feet. This would equal 1 rounded teaspoon per square foot.
If phosphorus and potassium are not needed, blood meal makes an excellent fertilizer. Apply at the rate of 2 pounds per 100 square feet or 1 teaspoon per square foot. Turf fertilizers such as a 27-3-3 or 30-3-3 also can be used but at the rate of to 1 pound per 100 square feet or 1 teaspoon per 2 square feet.
Your zoysiagrass fairways and tees might have tried to dress up like a jack-o-lantern, turning itself orange for Halloween. The moderately cool, moist, foggy conditions are perfect for large patch development. We are seeing it in our inoculated plots at Rocky Ford but in lots of other places too. Normally zoysia is shutting down right now. Normally, one application in the fall usually does a great job. You can view a short podcast on large patch fungicide research at KSU. But when the disease is active into November? I’m not sure.
I’ve never seen zoysia this green in November. What a weird fall. Lots of strange things happening in plants. At home we are still harvesting peppers and tomatoes after dinner while comfortably wearing short sleeves, shorts, and sandals.
Anyway – what are you seeing out there? Did you treat in mid-September? If so, is it holding? If not, did you go back in? Let us know what is and isn’t working for you.
Dollar spot loves, dew, fog, and temperature 65-85 degrees and we have had those conditions lately.
As you think about your fungicide program, don’t forget about rotating among different mode-of-action groups. The Chemical Control of Turfgrass Diseases publication from Kentucky does a great job outlining those principles. Don’t forget to look at the active ingredient names and FRAC codes along with the trade name. You might think you are rotating, but you are not. You can read the general info on that page, and/or scroll to the info specific for dollar spot a few pages in.
The Kentucky publication highlights some points about fungicide resistance. In a recent survey of isolates collected in Kansas, nearly all were fully resistant to thiophanate-methyl. That is, the fungus blew through it like it was not even there.
Over the past 1-2 weeks we’ve been seeing a lot of rust in lawn height turf. At Rocky Ford we are finding it in mainly perennial ryegrass but in little pockets in some newly-established zoysiagrass too.
The rust spores need wet leaf surfaces to infect, and we have definitely had some moist, dewy days and even some very foggy mornings. Though the fungus itself spreads best during wet weather, plants that have been stressed by drought are more susceptible. Nutrient-deficient turf is also more susceptible.
We have some information about rust in our publication Rust Diseases in Turfgrass (pdf).
(Photo from Entomology Blog)
What the heck is that?
Itch mites. Wow, they are a pain. Dr. Ray Cloyd provides some details and images on the KSU Entomology Blog.
Read on here:
The Kansas Turf Conference, in conjunction with the Kansas Nursery and Landscape Association, is coming up in just a few weeks.
You can find the program brochure at the following link, with the schedule, presentation titles, and more:
http://www.kansasturfgrassfoundation.com/uploads/8/9/7/3/8973595/2106turfconf_web.pdf
These are just a few of the many great topics for 2016:
… and more! Again, visit the site above for the entire schedule.
In addition to presentations, we will have some informal round-table discussions in the trade show.
By popular demand, our “Meet the Pests” diagnostic quiz will be available again as a fun, hands-on way to earn 0.5 hrs of 3A/3B credit.
(Megan Kennelly, KSU Plant Pathology)
If you manage zoysiagrass and have a history of large patch, you are undoubtedly already thinking about this disease, and maybe you just put out an application or are getting ready to do it soon.
There is some great info about large patch control at this link, starting on page 14.
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ppa/ppa1/ppa1.pdf
We’ve done quite a few trials at KSU over the years, and our results match pretty closely with the efficacy data shown at the above link. Regarding timing, we’ve had good control from most application timings in September.
Large patch tends to be in the same areas from one year to the next, so one option is to map out “hot spots” and focus on those.
Inoculation time!
In addition to large patch management, it is also time for large patch inoculations for research. Yup, most of you want to get rid of large patch. Here at KSU, we want MORE! I’m working with PhD student Mingying Xiang and Dr. Jack Fry in collaboration with Texas A&M, Purdue, University of Arkansas, and other universities to screen zoysiagrass breeding lines for disease resistance and agronomic traits as part of a USGA-funded project. We recently inoculated plots with the fungus that causes large patch disease. We cultured the fungus in the lab, grew it out on sterilized oats in glass jars, and then hauled our tailgate-of-death-and-destruction out to the field. To inoculate, we put the colonized oats just below the thatch. We might see some symptoms this fall, otherwise we definitely should see patches by spring. We will measure disease severity using digital images and other methods. We are hoping to find some breeding lines with good resistance. As we all know, starting with a resistant variety is the foundation of integrated pest & disease management.
“My knees are getting tired from all this crawling”
No, that is not our snack. Those are jars of the fungus growing on oats. Yum!
We dig just barely down into the soil and place the oats, then put the flap of grass back down.
Even after one (rainy) night, there was already new mycelium growing off the oats.
(Megan Kennelly, KSU Plant Pathology)
The soggy weather continues, and diseases are in full swing. Dewy, wet mornings lead to mycelial growth of the pathogens that cause dollar spot or foliar Pythium. These are mainly golf course concerns, but the diseases can occur at other sites.
Here is a sample that came into the lab, loaded with foliar Pythium:
It is from a golf course fairway at a site that has received a lot of rain and some foggy mornings where everything is wet-wet-wet.
For management info on foliar Pythium, you can check these links:
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/ppa/ppa1/ppa1.pdf
(scroll through to the Pythium part on p.17)
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/IPM1029-17#Pythiumfoliarblight
Root health continues to be a problem, especially on putting greens. We’ve posted a lot of information this year about wet soils leading to physiological decline and triggering Pythium root rot in some cases (see links at bottom of this post). Putting greens with poor drainage, less-than-ideal construction, or a build-up of organic matter are particularly susceptible. Here are some putting green rootzones with a lot of organic matter build-up, visible as dark layers:
All those layers kind of look like tiramisu…mmm… yummy… getting distracted.
Unlike delicate layers of a tiramisu, layering in a putting green rootzone is NOT a delectable delight. Another complication of poor drainage is that it can make the turf more prone to anthracnose. I received a couple of samples in recent days with crown rot anthracnose. Both also had layering problems and root decline.
There is some information about anthracnose here:
http://www.bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/EP147.pdf
and here is an excellent list of best management practices:
http://turf.rutgers.edu/research/bmpsanthracnose2015.pdf
Many of the practices to reduce anthracnose also promote overall turf health. That is, when you implement agronomic practices to promote good rooting you also reduce the risk of anthracnose and other problems. You may not be able to do ALL of the beneficial agronomic practices you would like, due to budgetary limits or lack of equipment or golfers’/greens committee opinions, but the more you can fit in, the better.
We posted on these topics earlier this year. If you want to go back and review, here are some links:
https://blogs.k-state.edu/turf/root-decline-it-aint-benign/
https://blogs.k-state.edu/turf/best-management-practices-for-turfgrass-anthracnose/
https://blogs.k-state.edu/turf/your-turf-is-trying-to-bike-up-a-mountain/
(Megan Kennelly, KSU Plant Pathology)
Ideally, trees should be protected during construction. For some tips, you can check out this website:
However, sometimes, the project just has to go where it needs to go and the budget does not allow time, personnel, or resources to consider tree preservation.
This corner went through some major construction in 2010. At that time, a big section of the tree’s root section was basically destroyed, with a sidewalk set in close to the trunk.
Despite having half its root system lobbed off, with broken roots as potential infection sites by wood decay fungi, the tree hung in there.
Over the past year, that area has had even more construction at that site, and the tree finally said, “Enough – I can’t take this anymore!”
The tree is scheduled to be taken down next week. RIP, big old friend!
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