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IMPORTANT NOTICE
Please be sure to keep an eye out for emails from us. We have switched over to doing much of our communication through email, including information regarding renewal letters, scheduled services, and recommended services.
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As always, we thank you for your business. If you ever have any questions regarding your lawn and/or landscape feel free to contact us either by calling (734) 699-0010 or through e-mail at turfproinc@sbcglobal.net.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Weakland
Turf Pro Inc. President/Owner
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Disease Alert
We've been seeing a lot of turf diseases in lawns lately. These diseases requires three conditions to thrive; a host (your lawn), a pathogen, and ideal environmental conditions. Diseases thrive in hot, humid weather and lots of moisture, which we've had lately.
You can find information on the specific turf diseases we've been seeing below.
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Common Summer Lawn Diseases
Dollar Spot and Necrotic Ring Spot are two diseases common to lawns in our area. Dollar spot shows up as lots of small brown spots in your yard, usually not more than a few inches across(size of a silver dollar coin to start out). One way to identify this disease is to look across your lawn first thing in the morning. You will often see what looks like small spider webs on the tip of the grass. This is the bacteria mycelium of Dollar Spot and quickly disappears as the day goes on.
Necrotic Ring Spot the damage tends to be more severe. The damage moves outward from a point, making ring-like patterns in the lawn. As it progresses it causes irregular dead spots to form and the grass looks spotty and thinned out.
Again, we have been seeing varying degrees of damage on many of our customer's lawns and hope this email will help with yours.
 | | Typical Dollar Spot coming into lawn |
 | | Telltale example of Necrotic Ring Spot, with a picture of heavier damage below. |
Red Thread Red thread is characterized by the easily recognizable red to coral-pink strands (stromata) produced on leaf blades and sheaths. When grass is wet, it appears gelatinous and fleshy. As it dries, the stroma also dries and becomes thin and thread-like. Often times symptoms resemble dollar spot but under close examination, the red stromata can be seen. Red Thread Disease thrives in hot, humid conditions.
 | | Red Thread in a lawn; close up below. |
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How to Manage Disease in Your Lawn
To manage and prevent disease damage from showing you can follow a few simple guidelines. Don't water in the evening or at night. By doing so you keep the grass wet all night and create optimal conditions for disease to flourish. Instead, water during the heat of the day; around 1:00 PM is ideal. This waters the grass and reduces the soil temperature. While it is as hot and dry as it has been lately you will need to water every day, every other day at a minimum. The more stressed your turf is in the more damage you will notice.
It is also important to keep up the fertility in the lawn by fertilizing on a regular basis which our slow release applications will do. That way when damage starts to appear the grass will quickly grow out of it. A healthy and actively growing lawn will be less prone to problems.
Also, don't mow your lawn too short. A mowing height of 2.75 to 3.5 inches is ideal for bluegrass. Cutting height also depends on how you water. Taller grass is healthier grass with a much deeper root system.
To recap; water during the day, fertilize regularly, and possibly raising the mowing height will all help keep your lawn looking good during the hot summer months.
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Tar Spot on Maple Leaves
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Photo credit:Steven Katovich, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org
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If you're noticing black dots on your maple leaves, you're most likely seeing Tar Spot. Tar spot is a foliar disease of maple caused by fungus which results in black tarry spots on leaves up to an inch in diameter. This is a common occurrence in Michigan, although severity varies from year to year.
The main problem caused by tar spot is the presence of the spots themselves. The most noticeable symptoms are present in late summer, but the infection actually occurs in spring as leaves are developing.
If you notice tar spot on your maple trees, the best course of action is to rake up and destroy all infected leaves in the fall. Mulching leaves is often not sufficient. The fungus can survive through the winter and reinfect trees in the spring. Because the disease is aesthetic, treatment is usually not necessary.
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Fall is the time to fertilize your trees and shrubs. Fertilizing your landscape using the deep-root method is an effective and efficient way to increase the health of your plants. Liquid fertilizer is injected directly into the root zone of each plant. It is a heavy slow-release fertilizer that is meant to promote continued growth all season rather than a quick burst directly after application. This builds the root system as well as top growth.
The fertilizer we use is complete with the essential macro and micronutrients utilized by trees and shrubs, including several important minerals. In addition to these nutrients this fertilizer also contains beneficial microbes. Microbial action is responsible for fixing nitrogen and solubilizing phosphorus in soil. These microbes effectively increase the availability of nutrients to the plant, allowing the plant to uptake more of the nutrients and therefore making the fertilizer more effective than fertilizers without microbes. Whether you have a new or old landscape, deep root fertilization can be very beneficial. Newer plant material will grow faster and fill in sooner. Older trees and shrubs that may be damaged or show slow growth will fill back in and grow at a normal rate. Do you have trees in your front yard between the road and sidewalk that aren't doing well? Chances are they were planted in poor soil and could benefit greatly from being fertilized. Or maybe you have a few maple trees or pin oaks that look yellow. Often this is a sign of iron or manganese deficiency, both micronutrients that are found in our fertilizer. Whether you have plants that are thinned out and not as green as they should be, or you want your landscape to remain healthy, Turf Pro Inc.can help increase the beauty of your yard.
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Taking care of your landscape isn't free, but it's a service that may save you money in the long run.
Keeping your trees and shrubs healthy not only keeps your landscape looking good but can actually add value to your property. This link, www.treebenefits.com has a great feature that allows you to select any tree species, the size of that tree, and your zip code, and the program computes that tree's added value to your home. This may sound odd but it includes factors you might not think about, such as energy saved on cooling bills resulting from trees shading your house, or CO2 absorption out of the atmosphere. Mature trees also add to property values. It may be a small percentage but the more expensive the property the larger the dollar amount you will see in added value. If you have a row of flowering pear trees along the street think of how much better your property looks when they are in full bloom in the spring, or in the summer when they are lush and green. On the flip side, how will your property look if those trees are thinning and yellowing?
Thinking about tree care might be as exciting to you as thinking about having your air ducts cleaned in your house, but remember the value your landscape adds to your property. It is cheaper to take care of your plants now than to allow things to die off and need replacement. If you have a 30 year old tree you will not be able to replace that tree with one of the same size, you have to start over with a small tree. And a small tree will still cost at least $300-$400 to install, possibly even double that. So spending a few hundred dollars now to improve the health of your plants could actually be a valuable investment as well as a cheaper option than doing nothing.
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Sincerely,
Michael Weakland / Owner
Turf Pro Inc. |
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