Full TGIF Record # 219258
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Web URL(s):https://listings.lib.msu.edu/nttfd/1951.pdf#page=18
    Last checked: 01/16/2017
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Publication Type:
i
Report
Content Type:Abstract or Summary only
Author(s):Lantz, Harvey
Author Affiliation:Pomology Subsection, Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa
Title:[Grasses in the Iowa turf garden]
Meeting Info.:October 7-9, 1951
Source:Proceedings of National Turf Field Days. 1951, p. 18-22.
Publishing Information:West Point, Pennsylvania: West Point Lawn Products
# of Pages:5
Keywords:TIC Keywords: Cadmium; Crabgrass control; Herbicide evaluation; Research priorities; Turfgrass nursery; Zoysia japonica
Geographic Terms:Iowa
Abstract/Contents:"It is a pleasure to be here. I didn't prepare a formal report but I can tell you in a general way that in Iowa we have been laboring with the Greenkeepers Association since 1939 at which time we established a turf garden for doing some work that they were interested in doing at that time. In Iowa the Greekeepers Association has been a very active group. They have been in back of our work to a man for a period of about 18 years. For 18 years we have had a short course in March and we have tried to put on a program which is of general interest to everyone and we succeed in attracting greenkeeping superintendents and others interested in turf from the middle west states. Our turf garden comprises about 8000 square feet and out initial plan in establishing the turf garden was to test a number of the new strains of bentgrasses which came out under C numbers and which were provided by Dr. Monteith. We have had a total of more than 30 strains in the turf garden. We were looking for disease resistance and strains that would come through the winter and summer without too much damage. Three strains have consistently stood at the top of the whole group and those are Arlington, Congressional and Old Orchard. There are several other strains that are very good. Collins has done pretty well. Norbeck is a very vigorous thing but it is extremely susceptible to dollarspot under our conditions and brownpatch. Toronto is another that suffers from dollarspot and brownpatch. A great many courses in Iowa now are looking to us for suggestions in regard to the kinds of bentgrasses they can expect to succeed with. The new courses are planting Arlington and Old Orchard or mixtures of Arlington and Congressional with excellent results. As the turf garden became older the strains ran together more or less and they have lost their identity in some cases but it has provided quite an excellent opportunity to test the new fungicides that were coming about. So we have accordingly been playing with fungicides for the past three years in cooperation with the National Fungicide program and we have followed this plan of applying identical fungicides on the same plots year after year feeling that it might be a contribution that we could make to determine whether or not a toxic situation might develop where continued applications of any particular type of fungicide has been used. Ourfwork has shown conclusively for three years that the cadium compounds are in agreement with results all over the country. It takes fewer cadium applications than any other type of material we use and the plots that have been treated with the cadium compounds are excellent. There is just no comparison throughout the season. In the spring we have seen that the plots treated with PMA compounds and Tersan developed dollarspot fully three weeks ahead of the plots that were treated the year before with cadium compounds. We made our last application as a rule along the latter part of August and no more applications were made purposely for the purpose of seeing how long a hold each one had. In two years we have come clear through the fall season with the cadium treated plots with no spots developing at all. I have some pictures that I could show sometime that are very dramatic as to the response in the fall months following the use of cadium compounds as compared to the other compounds used in the treatments. This past year we cooperated with the crabgrass control program and we have been interested in studying the effect of the various compounds and seasons of applications. Our season was very wet all season. In fact we have had more rain than we knew what to do with. It rained 3 3/4 inches last Wednesday and Thursday nights on top of a 16 inch surplus. It has been an extremely difficult problem to get some of the work done that we need. In fact the turf garden is not well drained. I am often amazed at the response we get to those bents on that tight silt loam which was not prepared before the grass was planted. In the spring with continuing rains the turf garden got off to a slow start. Our greenkeepers reported the same thing on their golf courses and the result was that we had earlier infections of dollarspot than we had a year ago. Our first applications were made the sixth of July this year. All told nine applications were made. We got three fewer applications of the cadmium compounds and got better control of the dollarspot than we were able to get with the other compounds. In connection with brownpatch we have had brownpatch on the turf garden but it is never as serious there as it is out on the golf course. We do not have very much conclusive evidence but we have noted that on cadmium plots brownpatch will develop there when the PMAS and Tersan plots will not show very much infection from large brownpatch. Those test have been interesting. I think we should probably go ahead with the program another two years to see whether or not there is a build of the toxic materials. We think we saw a little thinning out of the bentgrass in the plots which were receiving continuous applications of PMA materials. We saw another thing for two years in a row and again this year. On the PMA treated plots there are almost no weeds. On the cadmium plots a considerable number of weeds developed. On the check plots we counted as many as 250 dandelions on a plot 44 feet in area. The crabgrass problem is getting more serious on the fairways all the time. We are getting more questions in regard to what they can do about crabgrass and for the past five years a great many people have been using PMA compounds some with success and some with complete failure. Last year the greenkeepers reported more results when they used the PMA compounds on the greens than at any time previous to that time. On fairways very few have used any material at all. At the Ames Golf and Country Club on the #6 fairway I daresay we have had as much crabgrass identified as small crab as can be found any place in the United States. On the check plot we counted as many as 258 individual plants on four feet square. On those areas from the first of July to the 9th of July when we put on our first application the bluegrass was completely taken over by the crabgrass. It presented quite a problem. We made our first application of the crabgrass control materials using the various PMA compounds at various rates of application and tested these materials at different times during the season. The first application was put on July 9 and the second was July 18 then again August 8 and August 28. Surprisingly enough good control was secured when the crabgrass was beginning to seed. We are thinking from what we saw this year that probably the best results we have gotten have been those applications made as the seed heads were forming on small crab. What happened on a good many plots was this. With potassium cynate within 24 hours you could use 100% kill of crabgrass. The plots turned dark brown. The rates used were 16 pounds per acre, 12 pounds per acre and 8 pounds per acre. We got progressively more burning on the 16 pound rates than lower rates of application and you got correspondingly fewer crabgrass survival as the rate went down. In about ten days the plots would clear up and the bluegrass came in. But within about three weeks after the July 9 application new crabgrass was observed coming in and a bout September 9 when we made out last counts, big stools had developed. By contrast in the PMA treated plots the seeds formed by the new plants looked very much like they would not be successful in producing new good seed. These plots will be retained next year. I am not here to tell you that these early applications when the crabgrass is in the early two-leaf stage is good but we did have some very remarkable results. For example in two acres we put on 7 quarts of PMAS per acre on July 6 and I was out there just a few days ago and it was amazing the results secured after one application at that time. That particular two acres was blue with the crabgrass seedlings. They were all over the area. It is really something to see. So the stage of development is something we want to study again next year. We have some mixtures of various strains of bluegrass and we have noticed that no matter what the mixture was, whether it was Alta or what not, the native bluegrass seems to dominate the plots at the end of three years. The Merion plots are beautiful. I will take off my hat to Merion out at Ames. We have good bluegrass there. The Merion bluegrass really stands out. It has a darker color and stands up more firmly and stiffly than does the ordinary bluegrass. We have put in enough U-3 a year ago. We thought we had enough for a good test and it looked like in the latter part of March they would come through. But we waited until June and we never saw a sprig of U-3 this year. So we are a little discouraged. However, Kenny tells me we should have mulched that first year and then give it a chance to get more deeply rooted. We are a little inclined to think that we shouldn't baby it along like that because maybe it won't do under Iowa conditions. But it did make a lovely plot. Zoysia japonica came through the winter perfectly. There wasn't any kill in the nursery or on the plot but the season was so cool that it made very little growth this past year. It needed more sunshine and more heat than we had in 1951. We had mountain climate all summer and a lot of rain. It wasn't a typical Iowa summer at all and Japonica didn't like that type of treatment at all."
Language:English
References:0
Note:This item is an abstract only!
ASA/CSSA/SSSA Citation (Crop Science-Like - may be incomplete):
Lantz, H. 1951. [Grasses in the Iowa turf garden]. Proc. Natl. Turf Field Days. p. 18-22.
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