As low moisture conditions continue in Indiana and Indianapolis is already requesting volunteer reductions in water use, it is time to start preparing for a potentially serious drought. Generally, turf can survive 5 to 8 weeks of dry conditions without substantial thinning or death. However, poor soils, traffic, excess heat, low mowing and/or scalping, and…Read more about Maximizing Lawn Performance Under Drought[Read More]
Fertilizing sports turf is critical in order to maintain turf vigor in spite of intense wear and tear. However, too little fertilizer or poorly timed fertilizer are common mistakes on sports complexes. Following are our recommendations for sports field fertilization: Apply fertilizer just prior to the season to insure aggressive growth Apply60% or…Read more about Fertilizing Sports Turf[Read More]
Phosphorus (P) fertilization of turf is being questioned nationally for two reasons. Phosphorus fertilization almost never induces a visual turfgrass response and deficiency symptoms are rarely seen, thus calling into question the need for P fertilization. Secondly, higher levels of P contribute to algal blooms and decrease water quality of ponds, lakes, and streams. Since…Read more about Phosphorus Fertilization in Turf[Read More]
The annual phase of rapid cool-season shoot growth of cool-season grasses is nearly complete, though it was diminished this year because of the dry and cool weather. It’s now time to consider fertilizing your lawn because fertilizer now will not dramatically increase vertical growth as long as moderate nitrogen rates are used and it will…Read more about Late May is Good Time to Fertilize Lawns[Read More]
Many lawns are slow to green-up this year and it is mostly due to the presence of Kentucky bluegrass. Even though Kentucky bluegrass is the best lawn grass for the Midwest, it is much slower than perennial ryegrass and tall fescue to green up in the spring (photo). A little patience, some rain, and some…Read more about Slowly Greening Lawns[Read More]
Patches of tall fescue or perennial ryegrass are currently much greener than Kentucky bluegrass (photos). Patches of these two grasses are prominent right now as the bluegrass is just starting to green up. Give it another week and the bluegrass will catch up with the tall fescue or ryegrass. No control is needed to remove…Read more about Dark Green Patches in Otherwise Lighter Green Lawn[Read More]
For the vast majority of homeowners, resist the urge to fertilize now. Fertilizing now can encourage too much growth and could lead to problems later this summer such as poor root growth and disease. Additionally, since spring rains play havoc with mowing schedules, nitrogen fertilization can further complicate your mowing schedule by causing grass plants…Read more about To Fertilize Lawns or not to Fertilize: That is the Question[Read More]
Now’s the time to get the mower out of the shed, make sure it starts and is ready to go when you need it in the next few weeks. Be sure to sharpen the blade and make sure the mower is working well mechanically. You should begin mowing at 3 inches or so once the…Read more about Fire up the Mower![Read More]
After widespread flooding, many question how well turf will survive. Turf injury from flooding depends on water temperature, species, duration of submergence, and depth of submergence. Turfgrasses can withstand submersion for up to 60 days when water temperatures are 50 degrees or less. Injury is increased under stagnant water compared to moving water, and injury…Read more about Dealing With Flood Damage[Read More]
Below is a table for the optimum mowing heights for turfgrass species in Indiana. The optimum mowing height is where the particular species will perform best, creating the thickest turf, and requiring the fewest inputs. Mowing above these heights will tend to create a less dense turf with coarser leaf blades, and potentially a puffy…Read more about Turf 101: Optimum mowing heights for turf[Read More]
Up until about two weeks ago, autumn 2004 was for the most part a fairly dry season. This means that if you fertilized your cool-season lawn in early September and were unable to regularly irrigate, the nitrogen that was applied probably was not used very effectively by the turfgrass plant. If you missed that fertilizer…Read more about November Lawn Fertilization[Read More]
Most of the state has received 0.5 inch of rain or more either this week or last and thus turf areas are starting to green-up again. It is important to take advantage of the few weeks of growing conditions and apply fertilizer immediately to help improve green-up, fill-in from drought damage, and winter survival. Apply…Read more about Fertilization required immediately as turf greens-up after rain[Read More]
As promised earlier, grub damage is now becoming apparent on lawns that are greening up with the recent rains. Grub damaged turf will not green-up with the rest of the lawn and is likely brown for good (dead) (see accompanying photo). Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do now and insecticides are certainly not effective…Read more about Grub damage visible as lawns green up[Read More]
Though areas of Indiana received some rain this week and more is forecasted, most of the state has received precipitation far below normal. Many lawns look as brown now as they normally do in August. This does not bode well for winter survivability of grass and the appearance of the lawn next year. September and…Read more about A Dry Lawn in October is Reason for Concern[Read More]
(Adapted from the Midwest Regional Turf Foundation Factsheet, Oct 1, 2004) After an extremely wet summer, turf drought stress has come out of nowhere almost throughout the state after a dry August and September. Though September and October are prime growing months, turf will not recover unless the turf receives ample rain or irrigation soon….Read more about Coping with Late Season Drought in Turf[Read More]
Now that we are entering the fertilization season for lawns, questions sometimes arise about where products go after application to lawns. Research at Purdue and many other universities has shown that fertilizers (including both nitrogen and phosphorus) and pesticides applied to turf will not move horizontally (runoff) or vertically (leaching). This is because the relatively…Read more about What Happens to Fertilizers and Pesticides Applied to Turf?[Read More]
White grub damage on turfgrass may be more widespread than many expected this year. With ample rain and favorable growing conditions for most host plants during the early and mid growing season, high concentrations of adult Japanese beetles were not as common as in previous years. This may have lulled turfgrass managers into forgetting about…Read more about September Grub Damage[Read More]
Well it must be September and it must finally be dry because I have seen some serious outbreaks of rust on many perennial ryegrass lawns throughout the area over the past week. Leaf rust has been most noticeable on lawns that are newly planted and malnourished, both excellent conditions favoring the development of this turf…Read more about Rust Revival![Read More]
Although this past growing season across most of Indiana has been cool and moist this is no reason to consider skipping fall core cultivation or aerification. In fact, this abnormal weather pattern is actually more conducive to thatch accumulation since many of the microbes responsible for organic matter break-down are less active in these conditions….Read more about Late-summer Aerification check-List[Read More]
Normal growth patterns of cool season grass produce most leaf growth in the spring. Therefore fertilization in spring tends to stimulate even more leaf growth which may in turn decrease long-term stress tolerance in the summer months. On the other hand, cool season grasses tend to slow down leaf growth in the fall producing relatively…Read more about Turf 101: Why does September Fertilization of Cool-Season Grasses Work?[Read More]
