Necrotic Ring Spot is getting me down.

[kevinsky]

This disease is becoming more and more common each year. The rings seem to start to appear in late August and are pronounce by mid October. I have been treating the lawns that have this disease each year in May. One year with Rubigan and the next with Heritage. On some lawn I am getting fairly good control. On others, very poor control. Some lawns I treated twice (again in July) and still poor control. My plan now is to try treating in late July rather than May and perhaps inter-seed this fall with a resistant grass species. All my lawns with this problem are predominantly Bluegrass lawns. Any help ?

[lawn king]

How much N do you apply ?

[kevinsky]

How much N do you apply ?

About 6 lbs per thousand square feet per year. Keep in mind we bag all our clippings.

[cenlo]

This disease is becoming more and more common each year. The rings seem to start to appear in late August and are pronounce by mid October. I have been treating the lawns that have this disease each year in May. One year with Rubigan and the next with Heritage. On some lawn I am getting fairly good control. On others, very poor control. Some lawns I treated twice (again in July) and still poor control. My plan now is to try treating in late July rather than May and perhaps inter-seed this fall with a resistant grass species. All my lawns with this problem are predominantly Bluegrass lawns. Any help ?

We have the same problem! I guess about 50-75% of all our properties have the fungi. Last year maybe 20%.............................. :dizzy:

[Pilgrims' Pride]

As well as a fungicide program you can try organic fertilizers, aeration, changing watering habits.
The organics will improve microbial activity.
Aeration (as often as your customer will allow) has obvious benefits and water more frequently but for shorter periods.

Good luck

[kevinsky]

We have the same problem! I guess about 50-75% of all our properties have the fungi. Last year maybe 20%.............................. :dizzy:

What time of the year do your lawns exhibit symptoms? I'm going to try my applications closer to that time next year. We also de-thatch and aerate every fall along with an organic fert app at the same time.

[GreenUtah]

Kevinsky,
Nevada, along with Utah, has one very distinct advantage wehn it comes to turf diseases, our low humidity. What that means for you is that you should take a long, hard look at the watering schedules you are using or recommending to your clients. In any turf at any given time, there are likely to be millions of spores of all sorts, everywhere. The key is to not create the conditions that favor "bloom". In other areas, nature leaves no choice, but in arid and semi arid areas, these conditions are usually of our own making. Aeration should help, resistant varieties will also help, but a couple of minor changes to watering may yeild the largest results of all. BTW, the N needs of most varieties of KB fall in the 2.5-3.25 lbs of actual N per season, depending on soil type, leaching, etc. I wouldn't want to mow lawns running at 6 lbs in a 28 week growing season! lol

[kcchiefs58]

In my area we are seeing nrs but it mostly is up on the higher elevations which happen to be newer lawns(5 to 13 years old), we very rarley see it in the valleys. We were doing two apps of rubigan may and june and was controlling the spreading of the disease but rings with the sunken center were still there. We found aeration did really nothing. We have even seen a client rip up the grass, remove six inches of soil, bring new soil in and guess what nrs two years later. This year we are trying two apps but one in may and one in sept, a chemical rep told us that this should give better control. It doesn't look any different than two apps in may and june right now. Good Cultural practices is a must also just like what has been said, We also found that if you seed the areas that are inffected with a resistant variety that really helps.

[kevinsky]

I'm wondering now if what we're dealing with is Summer Patch as Necrotic Ring Spot should show up closer to Spring rather than Fall. If so, later applications should work better. Is there a Bluegrass that is resistant to this fungus?

[GreenUtah]

here's some more info, including resistant varieties Kev. KC, we've done tens of thousands of apps all over the Front and in summit and wasatch. Anytime we've encountered disease of any sort, it's been cultural related and once those adjustments were made, problem went away permanently. One site is all that we've treated with a fungicide in the past decade and ironically enough, there was no fungus present, they were just insistant on having it done as a preventative( a PM group manager).

http://eesc.orst.edu/agcomwebfile/edmat/html/EC/EC1462/EC1462.html
(I'd say Oregon and Washington would be pretty good bets on disease info)
http://extension.usu.edu/plantpath/turf/turf_summer_patch.htm
(and one from the neighborhood)

[kevinsky]

Thanks GreenUtah. I've thought about cultural practices and don't know how I can change the watering schedules very much. We are restricted to two days a week to irrigate and in most cases this is not enough. So generally speaking, we are irrigating just enough to keep from getting brown areas. I have properties with the disease where the irrigation timing is different for each lawn zone because of exposure, aspect or slope and still the disease shows up in all zones. I just have not been able to find anything common to all properties with the disease. And here's another thing: I've been caring for some of these accounts for almost 20 years and have only started seeing the disease in the last eight years. Fifteen years ago we were not restricted with watering nor were there water meters so everybody was generally watering every day during the simmer months. I appreciate the feedback and will take a look at those web sites.

[GreenUtah]

well, certainly a lawn in stress tends to pick up more problems. I've been assuming you are in the northern part of the state becasue the south is predominately TF and hybrid bermuda and of coure, there is no way of getting by on twice a week watering in 115 plus temps...lol...if you are in the north, cut height on your turf can play into it a lot, both in overall stress and water usage/holding ability. As far as the problems cropping up in the last eight, it could've been masked more when the turf was denser or thicker under heavier watering or could it be that you've just become more aware of the problems and adept at identifying over that time? What do your run times look like on the irrigation, typically? soil type? grow season length? cut height on these props?

[kcchiefs58]

[QUOTE=GreenUtah]here's some more info, including resistant varieties Kev. KC, we've done tens of thousands of apps all over the Front and in summit and wasatch. Anytime we've encountered disease of any sort, it's been cultural related and once those adjustments were made, problem went away permanently. One site is all that we've treated with a fungicide in the past decade and ironically enough, there was no fungus present, they were just insistant on having it done as a preventative( a PM group manager).
[QUOTE]


This brings a couple of questions:
1. This year we have seen more nrs than any other year. I am not talking about thousands we have seen maybe 20 to 30 lawns.This is because of the very wet spring. The last 5 or 6 years have been really dry during spring and the rest of those years....Question is if they have nrs and you know about it there has to be something to stop this disease from getting worse..a preventative.. you cannot turn off mother nature..so during wet springs aeration alone will not work, what then?
I don't buy the problem goes away permanently just because of cultural practice, because mother nature plays a role into it and we have no control over her.
2.With all those people you service they all listen, then do what you tell them to do? How do you do get customers to do exactly what you want them to?Maybe we are in different situations but we will treat annually 14,000 lawns a year, we leave notes, call on the phone and talk to our customers but they will do what they want..example they mow too short, we talk till we are blue in the face and still does not matter they mow how they want.
3. Not to make things light but I am pretty sure that if you approached USPCA they would love to have someone like you on their agenda for Feb. conference to teach others, not only about nrs, but how you have succeeded in controlling it, and getting all your customers to follow your guidance.If you have ever been to one of those conferences this would be exactly what they need.

[GreenUtah]

kc, it's the same issue as the antracnose on the sycamores this spring. So will we need to either spray every year for preventative measures or cut them down? There are a lot of hundred year old ones in the Aves and elsehwere that seem to have made it this far without that kind of assistance. Yes, the wet spring triggered a lot of problems that are not usual, key word here, usual. If you do not control events like this on the "usual" basis, then you are going to create a condition where chemical controls will always be necessary, frequently and consistently. This spring was highly unusual, thankfully refilling many of our reservoirs and up on your end especially, keeping weber water flowing all year. Yes, it triggered some early problems, but then it dried out and returned to normal, right? At that point, it became all about cultural practices. For 2 months, it was nature, for the next six, man. There will always be millions of spores, insects and a host of other potential problem makers out there, just waiting for conditions to tip in their favor. We're never going to eliminate them. Our job is to try to keep them from tipping that direction(where problems occur) and that goes far beyond just mixing up. This is the philosophy we used to communicate with our customers, drilling into them that if they do not follow guidelines for their mowing and watering and other cultural practices, they are literally wasting what we are doing. We don't sell magic wands, we leave that to you-know-who. Each round, specific instructions on the wheres whens and whys to follow is what we leave them. Those that don't follow along, don't see the results they expect and are reminded of that when they question what's happening. I think most people want to know the right way of doing it and will follow your instructions when you are specific and they are seeing the results. The rest can go ahead and call the marketers of magic wands. That's how we put it, that's what we've been successful with. We're your partners all season long, not just every 6 weeks and have an interest in your lawn looking it's best. You won't find a lot of customers who will want to argue against that. As far the USPCA goes, the extension office has plant pathologists that not only love to talk about this with greater expertise and detail, it's part of their mission. Sorry for the rambling,we could actually go a few more days on this subject, but I'll try to cut it here..ll