We are fortunate to have three great out-of-state speakers join us at the Kansas Turf and Landscape Conference this year.
Register online before this Friday, November 22 for a discounted rate!
Dr. Becky Bowling (left) is the Extension Specialist in the Plant Science Department at the University of Tennessee. Her research and extension efforts have focused on evaluating and communicating best management practices for turfgrass to promote environmental stewardship and resource-use efficiency in turfgrass systems and related urban green spaces with an emphasis on water efficiency, water capture, and water quality protection.
Dr. Wendell Hutchens (left) is an assistant professor of turfgrass science in the Horticulture Department at the University of Arkansas. His main areas of expertise are turfgrass pathology, precision management of turfgrass pests using emerging technologies, and winterkill mitigation strategies in warm-season turfgrasses. His research program is centered around maintaining healthy turfgrass and combating turfgrass stressors with traditional cultural and chemical practices, as well as with cutting-edge new technology.
Dr. Fred Whitford (left) is the Clinical Engagement Professor and Director, Pesticide Programs at Purdue University. His focus is on extension outreach, pesticide safety education, pesticide registration and regulation, insurance, and environmental safety audits.
Winter injury in certain areas where warm-season grasses grow in the transition zone is not unusual. Specifically, here are the things that can have a significant impact on winter injury of zoysiagrass and bermudagrass:
Selection of a less cold hardy warm-season grass: There is a relatively short list of bermudgrass and zoysiagrass cultivars that are best adopted to the transition zone, including Kansas. Here are a few of each of those species that are relatively good through winter, but that doesn’t mean they can’t suffer winter injury:
High Nitrogen levels: High levels of nitrogen fertilizer through the growing season, or nitrogen applied in the fall can have a more significant impact on winter injury.
Shade: Shade reduces photosynthesis and carbohydrate production by grasses, and can significantly reduce the potential for a species/cultivar to survive cold temperatures. Trimming trees or removing them may be required to enhance cold hardiness.
Traffic: Significant traffic on the soil and turf prior to winter can have a significant impact on the turf and result in higher levels of winter injury. Traffic control (not allowing excessive traffic) and effective aerification can help enhance its survival.
Excessively wet soil: It’s not unusual for warm-season turf that sits in a low area (often on golf course fairways) where water accumulates can have a greater impact of winter injury. High levels of water in the soil will impact these grasses when severe cold arrives. Improved drainage can help protect these areas.
Lack of snow cover: Snow is very beneficial to protect warm-season grasses prior to excessively low temperatures. For example, several years ago we had snow cover in Olathe, KS when temperatures were at least -15 F and no winter injury occurred.
Grass not fully acclimated for cold temperatures: There is a greater chance of freezing injury if temperatures get quite low when the grass had not fully acclimated to cold. Example – excessively low temperatures in November or December can have a significant impact. Likewise, the same may occur during late winter or early spring when warmth approaches and then that is followed by excessive cold.
Exposure to wind on high level areas: This can often cause desiccation in winter if exposed to strong wind when there is no snow cover. If expected in the near future, it may be useful to apply water on these elevated areas before the excessive cold arrives. Or…some type of cover to protect the surface.
By Cheryl Boyer, Professor and Extension Specialist, Nursery Crop Production and Marketing
Believe it or not, students at K-State are already looking for 2024 internships. You can attract interns for next summer right away at the All-University Career Fair, Opportunities in Agriculture on September 19 in Bramlage Coliseum on campus in Manhattan.
Get connected with our students! Everything you need to know about how to engage with K-State students is available here: Welcome Employers!.
The university uses a tool called Handshake to help connect students with employers. Invest some time in getting set up on the platform so you can identify top-notch students for your internship and employment opportunities.
As always, we treasure having our industry members–YOU–meet with students. Whether you’d like to visit campus and engage with a class or student club, or you’d like to invite a class to your business to see how you approach turf and landscape work, just reach out to us and let us know. We’ll get you connected.
The more often students see you and your business represented in their engagement opportunities through Kansas State University, the more likely they will consider working for you in an internship or full-time employment after graduation. If you decide to join the All-University Career Fair on September 19, please let us know so we can help spread the word. See you soon!
“The Census of Horticultural Specialties collects information to provide a comprehensive and detailed picture of the horticultural sector of the U.S. economy. It is the only source of detailed production and sales data for floriculture, nursery, and specialty crops for the entire United States. For the 2019 Census of Horticultural Specialties, an operation is defined as any place that grew and sold $10,000 or more of horticultural specialty products during the census year.”
If you have not filled this out, please do so ASAP—Be Counted!
Participating in listening sessions and discussions, filling out surveys, and contributing to grant review panels are critical ways you can help us so we can help you with teaching, research, and extension—the Land-grant university missions. Thank you for engaging with these essential processes.
Fall armyworms have been spotted in the Wichita area, including the John C. Pair Horticultural Center. Armyworms are foliar feeding caterpillars that can sever turfgrass tillers at the ground level. Recovery is often good after the damage occurs, but be aware that if no attempt at control is used, turf quality will be low for a period of time. Dr. Raymond Cloyd provides details about fall armyworms and their biology and control HERE!
The is the second edition of “K-State’s Sodcast,” which is a short interview with an individual to hear information about their involvement in the turf profession. Several of these will be put together each year. In this interview, Loren Breedlove, former golf course superintendent at Kansas City Country Club, talks about the 42 years he spent employed at one golf course. These interviews are done to highlight professionals who have been supportive of K-State, not to advertise their accomplishments or their business. I’d like to acknowledge the help of Gerry Snyder with K-State’s Division of Information Technology for helping put this together.
K-State’s Turf and Ornamentals Field Day is happening! It will be held at the Rocky Ford Turfgrass Research Center, 1700 Barnes Road, on Thursday, August 5th. Due to the pandemic (which is receding for now!), we will have a change of structure for our tour of research plots and conversations with faculty and graduate students. Please note that the format and guidelines are subject to further change or cancellation, based on KSU and state/local health policies.
Details on program and “fillable” registration form (if you don’t want to register “online”) available HERE
Parking at Faith E Free Church – 1921 Barnes Road, Manhattan, KS.
There will be no formal welcoming session this year. Tours will leave from the registration area about every 15 minutes beginning at 8:30 a.m. and running until 10 a.m.
Vendors will be present from 8 a.m. until about 1 p.m. If you’re a vendor with interest in attending or sponsoring lunch or a “recorded video,” check HERE
You can arrive anytime between about 8:15 am (or earlier) and 9:45 am to join one of the tours.
Eight stops with different presenters, each running about 15 minutes.
No donuts or coffee will be provided, but a boxed lunch will be available when your plot tour finishes. Take your boxed lunch and find your own space to eat – there will be some chairs spaced out in shaded areas. Or, feel to take it “to go.”
The dreaded check engine light popped on this past month. Bound to happen to a 15-year-old vehicle, pushing a quarter of a million miles. I immediately stopped by a local auto parts store and connected a diagnostic scanner to find a faulty fuel level sensor. Not the worst diagnostic error, but I knew I had to be more aware of the miles I drive between refueling. It reminded me of a quote by Dr. Dana Lonn, former managing director for technology at Toro Company, in which he states, “controlling an irrigation system without soil moisture data, is like driving a car without a gas gauge.” I realized more than ever what he meant as I found myself making more frequent stops at the gas station to refuel this past month, just to be sure.
The rootzone profile is much like a fuel tank, where adequate water, or “fuel”, is needed in the profile to maintain a healthy turfgrass stand. How do you know when to refill your soil profile? Setting irrigation clocks to specific days of the week to water is prone to lead to overwatering, like myself now, making more stops than necessary to refuel the vehicle. Even calculating daily evapotranspiration rates (which are estimates of the water used by turfgrass) fail to accurately account for moisture in the soil profile. Utilizing technology and devices to determine soil moisture is much like a fuel level sensor that can aid in determining when the plant needs water. This is where implementing technology in the landscape has advantages. The greater period you can stretch between irrigation applications, the greater chance a rainfall event will occur which will serve as “free water”, though I do not anticipate free gas events.
Soil water sensors are like a fuel gauge – necessary! Both wired and wireless are available.
For the past three years, I have been working to determine how to best employ technology in the turf landscape. Soil moisture sensors are one of many tools we can use to precisely determine when irrigation is needed to maximize water savings, increase turfgrass quality, provide consistent playing conditions, and minimize overwatering. Research results from 2020 indicated soil moisture sensor-based irrigation yielded 84% water savings compared to frequency-based irrigation (2x week-1) and 72% savings compared to deficit evapotranspiration (60% ET) irrigation. These significant water savings were achieved by simply monitoring soil moisture and watering only when necessary to “refuel the tank.” For more information as reference to this project, see this past article (Development of Irrigation Scheduling Techniques that Conserve Water in Turfgrass Landscapes using Soil Moisture Sensors and Weather Data. Kansas Turfgrass Foundation Newsletter, September 2019).
Throughout my turfgrass management career, I have had the opportunity to work with many great golf course and athletic field facilities across the United States. Many of those managers took on the philosophy to be data-driven because it removes the guesswork. The more data available at one’s fingertips the better decisions one can make. The key is not to become overwhelmed with the data, however, but to use the data to aid in improving your decisions or as a “tool in the toolbox”. Regarding irrigation, automated systems may become more widespread in the future and use sophisticated technology to control irrigation. Until then, we can use the current technology to establish our own automated irrigation decisions. I often like to think about two or three simple questions before I choose to irrigate. Specific questions and thresholds center around soil moisture data, turf canopy conditions, and future precipitation forecasts. Certain criteria must be met before the irrigation is turned on which has achieved significant water savings while maintaining turfgrass quality. As my research nears an end, I think it is time to schedule that service on my fuel level sensor.
By Daniele McFadden (recent M.S. graduate at K-State)
With spring in full swing many of you are taking advantage of the warm soil temperatures and overseeding turf areas. Often times we can mistakenly coincide our spring-time herbicide applications with seeding cool-season turf. So, are your new seedlings going to mature and develop if this happens? Research was done over the last two years to evaluate how several herbicides affect the emergence and growth of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass when seeded after application. Following are some takeaways from these experiments.
The good:
When dandelions and other common broadleaves start to appear, a standard three-way postemergence broadleaf product containing 2,4-D + MCPP + dicamba (numerous trade names) is often applied. In both the field and greenhouse, we found that seeding tall fescue into an area treated with this herbicide combination was safe on the seedlings, and was comparable to tall fescue growth in areas where the herbicide wasn’t applied.
Other combination products used for control of broadleaf weeds were found safe on tall fescue seedlings when seeding was done 0 to 14 days after herbicide application. These herbicides included:
Playing catch-up with yellow nutsedge control? Applying halosulfuron-methyl (Sedgehammer and other trade names) in late summer or early fall for the control of nutsedge could affect your tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass seedlings if seeding occurs within two weeks of application. Both cool-season grasses emerged in the field with mild chlorotic symptoms that went away within 8 weeks after seeding. However, a closer look at root development showed that seeding tall fescue into soil treated with halosulfuron-methyl significantly stunted development. The Sedgehammer label guidelines clearly state that a four-week delay after application is needed. Plan your nutsedge control earlier in the summer so it does not interfere with early fall seeding.
The ugly:
Did you accidentally apply a preemergence herbicide for crabgrass control before seeding? You might be wasting your seed. Our studies found that seeding tall fescue or Kentucky bluegrass into an area treated with dithiopyr (Dimension) greatly inhibited growth of the seedlings.
Bottom line – reading the label to learn how soon seeding can be done after herbicide application is critical. Labels on some of these products indicate that seeding should be done after a longer interval has passed after application compared to what was observed as required in this research. Seeding guidelines on labels must be followed; that said, research results from this project provide useful information to herbicide manufacturers and turf managers who may unknowingly seed into herbicide-treated areas.
Evaluating emergence of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass when seeded 0 to 14 days after herbicide application in Manhattan, KS.
These research results will soon appear in greater detail in K-State’s 2021 Turfgrass Research Research Report.
***Mention of trade names or commercial products in this article is solely for identification purposes and does not imply recommendation or endorsement, nor is criticism implied of similar products not mentioned by Kansas State University.***
Silvery thread moss has been an increasing problem on golf course putting greens over the past couple of decades. Moss is a bryophyte, and that makes it different from most plants. It doesn’t have roots, but rather rhizoids that serve as an anchor, but aren’t as efficient at absorbing water and nutrients compared to roots. It also grows across a wide range of temperatures. It can be actively growing when creeping bentgrass or annual bluegrass appears dormant in late fall or early spring. It can also experience severe drought for months (or years), and regrow once water returns; no other weeds we deal with in turf are that resilient. Research was done on silvery thread moss over several years at K-State by graduate students Dr. Cole Thompson (now Director of Research for the USGA) and Dr. Zane Raudenbush (Dr. Raudenbush just left The Ohio State University to join Davey Tree Company). Here are some things to know regarding how management of putting greens will influence moss that came from their research:
Things that make it happier:
Mowing lower promotes more moss encroachment. For example, research showed that mowing at 0.125 in vs. 0.157 in resulted in greater moss populations.
Areas that are thin are susceptible to moss encroachment, so maintain turf density.
Moss loves water. If you’re watering frequently, you’ll favor its growth.
Soluble nitrogen applied as a liquid on a frequent interval (spoon feeding) encourages the growth of moss.
Things that help suppress it:
Mow higher and maintain turf density.
Water less frequently while still meeting the needs of the turf.
Fertilize with granular products that allow slower N release.
Core aerify, verticut, and topdress. Although some may think they could spread moss with cultivation, research has shown that moss populations can be reduced by these practices, which is due in part because the moss colonies are disturbed and allow creeping bentgrass to occupy those areas.
Apply products for moss suppression. The most popular product used for this is Quicksilver, which contains the active ingredient carfentrazone-ethyl and is labeled for use on greens. Follow the label on Quicksilver for effective moss suppression (don’t expect complete control); using this or other products labeled for moss in combination with aforementioned cultural practices will be the best approach.
***Mention of trade names or commercial products in this article is solely for identification purposes and does not imply recommendation or endorsement, nor is criticism implied of similar products not mentioned by Kansas State University.***
Don’t forget to follow the K-State Turf and Landscape Team on Twitter @KSUTurf
Dr. Becky Bowling (left) is the Extension Specialist in the Plant Science Department at the University of Tennessee. Her research and extension efforts have focused on evaluating and communicating best management practices for turfgrass to promote environmental stewardship and resource-use efficiency in turfgrass systems and related urban green spaces with an emphasis on water efficiency, water capture, and water quality protection.
Dr. Fred Whitford (left) is the Clinical Engagement Professor and Director, Pesticide Programs at Purdue University. His focus is on extension outreach, pesticide safety education, pesticide registration and regulation, insurance, and environmental safety audits. 
