Turf Times Ahead —
A Quick Look in the Rear-View Mirror:
What Went Wrong in 2016? by Meta Levin
Crab grass here. Crab grass there.
Last season it seemed that there was crab grass everywhere in some areas. “It was our biggest challenge last season,” says Mark Utendorf of Emerald Lawn Care. To combat it, Utendorf increased the use of Barricade Pre-Emergent Herbicide on client’s lawns. This season, however, they have decided to try a different product. “There was plenty of crab grass,” says Grubs Shane Griffith, who owns Weedman Lawn Care of East Dundee. “We saw more than normal.” Many of the lawn care specialists try to educate their clients and “mow high” is their most common recommendation. It can, they say, solve a lot of problems before they start. For Tony Kacinas, soil and turf department manager of Chalet Nursery, there were a lot of crab grass problems, but they primarily were with new customers. He attributes that, in large part, to Chalet’s practice of using both preemergent and post-emergent herbicides. “There always will be some break throughs,” he says. Bill Bug Grubs And weather can make a big difference. But the combination of weeds, pests and other problems, Kacinas and others primarily attribute to the mild winters and springs. “There was no nice deep freeze,” he says. “The spring was wet and cool. I was still wearing a coat through May.” There were other issues that plagued the lawn care industry in the last season or two, but they primarily were pests. Utendorf ticks off a list of saw bill bugs, chinch bugs, which he saw later in the season and a stronger grub season. “Grubs overwinter,” Utendorf says. “So, I Red Thread wouldn’t be surprised if the mild winters have had an impact.”
16
“We always have some insect disease,” says Harold Enger, Spring-Green’s director of education. And some of the damage is misdiagnosed. The most common is the Bill Bug Grub. Customers don’t know why their lawns are turning brown, says Enger. They think that the heat is to blame. So, they water or it rains, but the spots stay brown. Bill Bug Grubs are the larva stage of adult weevils. The female mates in early spring and lays eggs in the middle of the grass stem. When the larva hatches, it feeds its way down the grass stem. “You have to know what to look for,” says Enger, who has spent more than his share of time pawing through grass, administering the “tug test.” When Enger or a homeowner tugs on the grass, it comes up easily. “The base has been chewed away and it looks like grains of sawdust,” he says. These are known as “frass (rhymes with grass).” If you fertilize and the weather is right, the grass will fill back in. Next year he plans to put down an imidacloprid insecticide. “It has to be applied in April,” he says. The bugs mate in April and start laying their eggs, which hatch and the larva begins doing its damage. By the time the homeowners sees brown grass, it’s too late, Enger says. While we are on the subject of patch diseases, Enger has seen a lot of Red Thread, as well as Rust. Red Thread typically shows up in late spring, while Rust is an end of summer problem. Normally, when a lawn is two to five years old, a soil born fungi is aggravated into activity by stress, which can be caused by heat, drought, too much fertilizer, mowing too low (continued on page 18)
The Landscape Contractor April 2017