Monday, October 13, 2014

Some things Need Repeat Applications & Need to be Written about Repeatively!



Sod Webworms
With the rain, treat for insects.  Sod webworms like to feed at night and on cloudy overcast days.  Obviously they have been chowing down the last month or two!  They will feed on all types of grass (Centipede, St. Augustine, Zoysia, Bermuda, Bahia).  If you have a lot of moths that fly a zigzag pattern then quickly sit back down, chances are you have an adult sod webworm laying eggs in your grass.  The damage that the sod webworm does looks like someone scalped an area of the grass with a very dull mower blade.  The grass is very ragged looking and you can see where the larva chewed on the grass.  If you look in the thatch area, you can see the feces and sometimes the worm itself.  Sod webworms are easily controlled with Bifen or Sevin.

Fire ants
With all the rain, the fire ants have come back with a vengeance!  If you put out bait in the spring, it is probably a good time to apply another application.  Baiting large areas (your entire property), is a very effective way to control fire ants and very inexpensive.  Using contact killers like Sevin or Bifen are also best used over a large area.  Most of the time mound treating simply chases the ant from one area to another.

Mole crickets
Mole crickets are young adults with their wings and are up near the surface tunneling ferociously!  Scout your yard for potential damage and treat as needed.  You can scout your yard by using soap flush (2 oz. of liquid dish detergent in a 5 gallon bucket of water, spread over a 2 ft by 2 ft area).  Wait 5 minutes to see what comes up.  To control these pests, use Mole Cricket Bait, Intice perimeter bait (NOP approved, LEED Tier 3), or Sevin.

Large Patch (the disease formerly known as Brown Patch)
With all the rain and the cool weather, Large Patch has exploded!  Cleary’s and Disarm provide a good one-two punch. If you know the areas that get brown patch, we get great reports about Neptune Harvest’s Crab Shell, Nature’s Blend, and Cotton Burr Compost suppressing the disease in areas that it has been perennial problem.  

If you are planning on transplanting a tree this fall, now is the time to root prune.  For root pruning trees, a good rule of thumb is for every inch in diameter of tree, you want twelve inches of root ball.  Sometimes this is not practical because you are usually transplanting an over-crowded tree or a tree located too close to a house or sidewalk.  At this point outline the biggest ball you can possibly move and just dig straight down severing the roots without actually removing the soil.  Come back in a month and dig away from the area that you severed leaving your tree in a little moat.  Spray the tree with transfilm (anti-transparent) and remove the tree. Use DieHard Transplant in the new hole.

Spray horticulture and neem oils now to kill over-wintering insects, this will put you ahead of the insect game in the spring.  

When buying gas for your lawn mower, be sure use ethanol free gas and to include a gas stabilizer to help prevent your carburetor from getting varnished over the winter.