It’s one of the great mysteries of the year every spring – what does the coming lawn care season hold in store for lawns, trees and ornamental plants across the country?
As each new season rolls around, contractors have to find out how much damage was caused the preceding winter. From there, it’s time for spring rains and warmer weather. Or is it? And what follows then? For some, a mild summer may be in store, but others must prepare to battle drought conditions and scorching temperatures. And so on…
| Contractors Offer Suggestions | |
| Pesticide manufacturers must be manufacturing quality products of late, based on feedback gathered from lawn care contractors. When asked what areas they’d like to see pesticide manufacturers do a better job in, it was the support manufacturers offer contractors that was their focus.
“There is a need for a layman’s explanation for everything involved with these products, the regulation issues surrounding them and how they can be used correctly,” observed John Pfeiff, president, JP Total Lawn & Property Maintenance, Kittredge, Colo. “I love that some manufacturers put MSDS labels on the Internet and I can store them on my computer,” said Steve Mattingly, president, Mattingly Lawn Care, Indianapolis, Ind. “But every year there are new tank mix possibilities, so I’d like more information discussing what works well together and what doesn’t, especially for multiple manufacturers’ products.” “We’re using injection technology, and one problem is that the formulations are so concentrated that we have to create slurries because the application rates are too low for injection equipment,” added Adam Jones, training and technical director, Massey’s Green Up, Maitland, Fla. “There’s a trend toward microinjection in the industry, but it’s hard to use 1 or 2 gallons in a backpack sprayer and measure out the right amount of product.” – Bob West |
While the climatic conditions may have varied across the country this year, most contractors cited few troubling or irregular problems compared to years past.
WEEDS. The Rocky Mountain region had perfect winter and early spring conditions for seed bed preparation, and the expected weed outbreaks have developed. John Pfeiff, president, JP Total Lawn & Property Maintenance, Kittredge, Colo., said some weed problems – mainly dandelion and Canadian thistle – have been the worst that he’s seen in eight years.
“We had some wet spring snow that brought seeds to the surface more than normal, and growing conditions were just perfect after that with a fairly heavy drought followed by rain,” Pfeiff recalled. “The drought provided some control, but the weed seeds still had perfect bed conditions, and the drought also stressed the turf.”
Pfeiff estimated dandelion problems have been four or five times worse than normal and said that warm, dry, breezy conditions through the summer helped spread Canadian thistle seed heads.
“The crabgrass and spurge has been a little worse than normal because the hot, dry summer caused some breakthroughs on our preemergent,” noted Mike Small, owner, Highland Park Lawn Company, Grand Island, Neb.
However, an early season dryspell in Florida is being credited for less incidence of crabgrass, according to Adam Jones, training and technical director, Massey’s Green Up, Maitland, Fla.
“Our most troublesome weed is the dallasgrass in the warm-season turfgrass, and that’s primarily a problem in new properties we take care of that haven’t been cared for properly,” related Larry Dorsey, president, Dorsey’s Landscaping, Monticello, Ga. “But it can be a nuisance because it crops back up in about three days and has such big heads that make it noticeable.”
On top of that, the Southeast has been faced with “a pretty good drought in August and September,” according to Dorsey, which further exacerbates turf problems by adding one additional stress to it.
Gil Landry, a turf extension agronomist at the University of Georgia, Griffin, said lawn care operators in the Southeast were reminded this year about the importance of making good winter applications and keeping them adequately spread out. “We had some significant increases in winter weed control problems due to above average amounts of winter rain,” he recalled. “In particular, there were problems with poa annua and annual broadleaf weeds.”
Fred Yelverton, with the department of crop science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C., said a lack of rain in that area decreased weed pressures this past summer, but the stream of fall hurricanes may cause problems this winter. “Overall, the problems associated with wet summers, such as the sedges, have been around but haven’t been too bad, and the crabgrass and goosegrass is just starting to show up a little more,” he said. “But Hurricane Bonnie dumped 10 inches of rain on us in early September, so contractors should expect to see a lot of breakdowns in weed control.”
Yelverton said this rain may also cause the winter annual weeds to arrive on the scene earlier than normal, so contractors should’ve made their preemergent applications about a week earlier than normal this year, which would mean during the third or fourth week of August. “The biggest thing to battle down here is poa control and winter annual broadleaf weeds,” he said. “Weed pressure can’t be allowed to get too high when the warm-season grasses go dormant or off color in the winter because of how noticeable green weeds will be in a brown lawn.”
DISEASES. “In general, our biggest problem every year is with summer patch on bluegrass,” added Small, “although it hasn’t been too bad this year. We’ve tried a bunch of different products and haven’t been able to get much control, and what control we have gotten has been pretty short lived and it ends up being too cost prohibitive to treat for it.
“Instead of the summer patch, we’ve had brown patch this year like we’ve never seen before on the bluegrass because of the heat. That has left the lawns looking pretty bad right now,” added Small.
Dorsey agreed that the heat has led to some sizeable brown patch problems, but primarily in fescue grasses. “But we don’t use too much fescue in Georgia,” he said.
Landy said most of the brown patch problems have been found in the tall fescues and cool-season grasses. “We’ve also had a lot of secondary issues related to drought stress from a lack of rain in the late spring and early summer,” he added.
Dollar spot has cashed in on some late summer humidity in Florida. “All of the leaf spot fungi have been more prevalent this year,” maintained Jones. “As a result, we’re ending up with field situations where the technicians have to determine whether or not to use a fungicide, whereas in previous years the problem was so minimal that we could let the fungus grow out of the turf. Our fungicide use is probably up 100 percent this year as a result.”
INSECTS. “Our biggest problem with insects has been grubs, spittle bugs and chinch bugs,” commented Dorsey. “North of us is fescue turf, so we see a lot of bermudagrass and centipedegrass. This is the worst I’ve seen the chinch bugs and grubs, and the spittle bugs are causing damage that makes turf look drought stressed.”
Dorsey said grub control continues to be a big push with residential customers and he’s trying to get them to communicate the im-portance of this with their neighbors. “Grub control also takes care of the Japanese beetles, and we’re trying to get people in subdivisions to work together against these insects to keep them from spreading,” he noted.
Armyworms have shown up in Georgia, according to Landy. “We’ve had an outbreak of the fall armyworms that started in August,” he explained. “This occurs about every five years or so.”
The armyworms also made a surprise appearance along with the expected sod webworms in Florida this summer, according to Jones. “Armyworms were persistent through August and we haven’t been able to pin down the cause,” he related. “But it’s not an epidemic.”
The author is Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine.
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