Fight spring, summer turfgrass diseases now

Fall is a great time to guard against spring and summer diseases on warm-season grasses.
Spring dead spot, or SDS, is one of the most common and important diseases on bermudagrass in Georgia. It is difficult to manage without an integrated approach. The disease is most common on intensively maintained turf like golf courses or lawns.

SDS causes dead patches

The characteristic dead patches appear in the spring when the grass is breaking dormancy, and the problem can persist well into summer. The fungus that causes the disease attacks the roots and stolons in the fall and winter. This makes the grass more vulnerable to winter freeze damage, which leads to the dead patches of grass.

Late September through October is the best time to apply preventative fungicide applications if SDS has been a problem this past season. But this won’t provide complete control. Most infections can be eventually eliminated over a period of years by combining fall fungicide applications with sound cultural practices.

But maintaining a disease free lawn in the coming years can only be accomplished by eliminating the stress that allowed the disease organisms to attack the lawn in the first place. Lawns are stressed by poor soil conditions combined with an imbalance of nutrients. Compaction, poor drainage and thatch thicker than one inch are linked to SDS outbreaks.

Follow these tips

Applying nitrogen late in the season or excess nitrogen, especially with a potassium deficiency, can encourage the development of disease. An integrated management program to improve the lawn’s health includes the following steps:
• When planting new lawns, use cold tolerant cultivars.
• Aerate and remove thatch regularly.
• Irrigate deeply and less frequently. (Once per week in the absence of adequate rain.)
• Mow at the recommended height. Low-mowing height stresses lawns.
• Monitor pH and nutrient levels on a regular basis with soil tests. Keep potassium and phosphorus in balance with nitrogen.
• Maintain a pH between 5.5 and 6.0 if disease has been a problem. The pH can be lowered by using ammonium sulfate as a nitrogen source.
• Apply moderate levels of potassium in September and October to increase cold hardiness. If a deficiency of potassium is indicated on a soil test, two applications of potassium sulfate or potassium chloride can be applied at a 3 to 4 week interval for a total of 1 lb. of K2O per 1,000 sq. ft. Excess potassium should be avoided as it can also encourage disease.
• Do not apply nitrogen after August. Nitrogen should be added in recommended amounts in late spring and early summer. Use moderate amounts of nitrogen during the summer so that excess nitrogen is not carried over into the fall.
• Apply fungicides in late September or October if SDS was a problem the previous spring.

Other warm-season grasses, such as zoysia, centipede and St. Augustine, will also benefit from these general recommendations to prevent diseases like take-all and Rhizoctonia large patch. Follow recommendations for fertilizer applications for the particular grass species. A pH of approximately 6.5 is generally optimum for warm-season grasses.

See these sites for more help

For more information on maintaining turfgrass in Georgia, see the website www.Georgiaturf.com. For fungicide recommendations, contact your local University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agent or consult the Georgia Pest Management Handbook for Homeowners at www.ent.uga.edu/pmh/.

By Elizabeth L. Little 


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UGA acquires zoysiagrass collection

University of Georgia has received the zoysiagrass collection developed by Jack Murray, a turf breeder with the United States Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md. An agreement between Bladerunner Turf, Inc., which acquired the collection in 2000, and the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., was signed to allow the UGA turf breeding program in Tifton to develop new turfgrass cultivars from the valuable zoysiagrass collection.

David Douget, owner of Bladerunner Farms, said the collection has already produced several commercially available varieties of zoysiagrass, and he has high hopes that UGA breeders will use the collection to further improve and refine cultivars for release.

Brian Schwartz, the University of Georgia researcher who heads the turf breeding program at UGA’s Tifton campus, said his team will use the plant collection to develop superior zoysiagrass cultivars adapted to the southeastern U.S. and similar environments around the world. “This collection will fill a need in Georgia and the southeast for new, improved zoysiagrass varieties,” said Schwartz.

The new collection adds to a turfgrass program that now includes four of the world’s top five warm-season turfgrass types — Bermuda, centipede, seashore paspalum and zoysia. Schwartz said zoysiagrass is a high-quality, slow-growing turf that requires less fertilizer than faster-growing Bermudagrass.

“This zoysiagrass collection gives us an opportunity to mix excellent plant material with a turfgrass breeding program that’s been active and hugely successful for more than 50 years,” said Schwartz, “and we intend to make the most of it.”


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Leaf mulching and fertilizer: A back-saving, soil-enriching way to deal with fallen leaves

(ARA) – As Mother Nature adorns the trees in your yard with riotous reds, vibrant yellows and exotic oranges, you can easily get swept up in the romance of the season – until those leaves turn brown, drop from the branches and litter your lawn. Then you start to think of the hours of backbreaking raking work ahead of you.

This autumn, why not try working with Mother Nature by mulching those leaves instead of raking, bagging and condemning them to a landfill?

Leaf mulching is a time-saving, environmentally friendly way to deal with fallen leaves. Plus, if you live in a community that has cut back on collection services due to the economy, mulching can solve your dilemma of what to do with the leaves littering your lawn.

“It doesn’t make sense to rake leaves and bag them, just to have them end up decomposing in a landfill,” says Dr. Phil Dwyer, senior scientist at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. “Leaf mulching recycles a natural resource and enriches the soil of your lawn for free.”

In fact, turf benefits by receiving more nutrients when you mulch fall leaves back into the lawn instead of raking them, according to a study by Michigan State University turfgrass researcher Thom Nikolai and ScottsMiracle-Gro scientists. Recycling fallen leaves saves time and money, adds nutrients to the soil, speeds spring greening and reduces weeds.

Here’s how to recycle this fall’s crop of fallen leaves:

* Remove the grass catcher from your lawn mower. Mow over the leaves on your lawn. Repeat until they are reduced to dime-sized pieces.

* Mow until you see about half an inch of grass through the mulched leaf layer.

Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and all kinds of leaves can be mulched. Throughout the season, you can chop up to 18 inches total of leaf clutter with several passes of the mower. Having a somewhat thick layer of mulched leaves is okay as long as you can still see the green grass blades poking through. As leaf bits settle into the ground, microbes and worms get to work recycling them.

Once you’ve enriched your soil with leaf mulching, don’t forget that fall is the best time to feed and seed your lawn. A few simple steps can help ensure that your lawn will be strong next season and beyond:

* After mulching, feed your lawn with Scotts Turf Builder WinterGuard fall lawn fertilizer to help build strong, deep roots for a better foundation and a more robust lawn next year. The nitrogen in the fertilizer will also help the mulched leaves decompose faster. Be sure to sweep excess fertilizer off hard surfaces like driveways and sidewalks.

* After feeding, spread seed where needed. To reseed your bare spots, dig up bare areas, mix in compost, sow your seeds and cover with more compost. If the weather is dry, keep the seeded soil moist until new grass begins to grow. Seeding autumn bare spots will thicken the lawn and make it more resistant to future bare spots.

To learn more about leaf mulching and autumn lawn care, visit www.scotts.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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