Bradley Geary, professor, plant & wildlife sciences at Brigham Young University
We won’t have a lot of turf diseases this spring. The symptoms don’t start showing up until summer. There will be areas that have brown rings because of necrotic ring, but that damage occurred in 2016 and is only an artifact of last year. Snow mold symptoms – dead grass – will be observed because of the heavy snow fall we had this winter, but these symptoms will quickly disappear as the grass greens up and grows.
Rhizoctonia brown patch will show up in the summer but will not be noticeable in the spring time. For insects, billbug and sod webworm are our biggest issues. Damage from the insects will not be obvious in the spring but you do want to treat for billbug in the spring.
Cheryl Smith, extension professor/specialist, plant health at University of New Hampshire
Through the samples I receive in the UNH Plant Diagnostic Lab for the last 30 years, I can tell you the most prevalent diseases are brown patch, red thread, leaf spots/melting out (several fungi), anthracnose, Pythium blight. Winter doesn’t really affect these. Snow came in late enough that I don’t think snow mold will be a big issue this spring.
Clarissa Balbalian, diagnostic lab manager for plant pathology at Mississippi State University
Moisture is predicted to be below average this spring, so I think take-all root rot is going to be a problem, especially on St. Augustine grass and maybe zoysia grass as well. The turf is stressed from the temperature extremes we had this winter. The extended periods of mild temperatures that we had during the winter made dormancy difficult in some areas – that combined with drought stress will make turf more susceptible to the take-all fungus.
Timing herbicide applications also will be tricky this year because of the mild weather, which could lead to herbicide stress on turf, another factor that favors take-all root rot. We also may be likely to see an earlier occurrence of dollar spot and leaf spot on bermudagrass, and large patch problems in St. Augustine grass and centipede grass, especially in irrigated settings or if we have several consecutive days of rainy weather. Winter weather doesn’t really affect insect pests. Scout for chinch bugs during hot, dry weather. They prefer locations that are in direct sun.
Alec Kowalewski, assistant professor and turf specialist at Oregon State University
Crabgrass and billbugs seem to be an increasing problem in lawns and landscape area in Oregon.
Crabgrass is a summer annual weed, which germinates in the spring, grows through the summer and then seeds and dies in the fall. Billbugs are a small beetle (6 mm long) with a funnel shaped nose and mouth, and feed on cool-season turfgrass maintained at lawn and athletic field height. Crabgrass and bill bug populations seem to be increasing. Crabgrass is a summer annual, which germinate in the spring. A mild winter followed by a warm spring would suggest early germination of this summer annual. Billbugs over winter as adults, emerging in the spring. A mild winter would also suggest high spring populations of overwintering adults, which will result in increased levels of damage in the spring and following summer.