 All right, so good morning, everyone. I'm Amanda Shear. I'm an assistant professor and extension plant phylogist with Auburn University and Alabama Cooperative Extension. I have a wide range of crop responsibilities, including cotton, peanuts, small grains, and forages, ornamentals, and turf. And turf is my topic for my webinar today. I mainly want to just go over kind of scouting tips, why we scout, how to scout, and then just general management for some turf grass diseases in Alabama. So why do we scout? This really follows the main component of integrated pest management, which really emphasizes on knowing what pests you have and managing them accordingly. So it really has three critical steps. One, of course, is prevention, where we try to prevent the buildup of pests. This can be by planting resistant varieties, maintaining proper fertilization, especially nitrogen sources in turf, irrigation in terms of timing and amount, maintaining adequate drainage and air circulation, and as well as just general stress management to avoid stress to turf grass. Just to keep it as healthy as possible to reduce its risk for disease development. Of course, pathogens are really good at what they do. So even though we do all these prevention steps, we still have to routinely go out and scout and monitor for diseases as well as insect pests. And scouting really focuses on identifying and accurately diagnosing a pest early on so you know when to intervene and how to intervene and make those timely management decisions. So a lot of times you'll hear scouting and monitoring kind of used interchangeably. But scouting is the single event of going out and looking for a pest problem. Monitoring is doing that scouting event multiple times. So you have to develop a routine for scouting that is not only feasible but effective and works around your schedule as well. You don't wanna do something that's too time consuming where you're not gonna be able to maintain that over time. And so there's kind of two common approaches to pest monitoring. One is where all employees just participating in scouting. They may not really be trained very much in identifying and diagnosing a turf grass issue, but they're at least eyes on the ground. And looking for anything that is suspicious in terms of pest damage whenever they're out on the grounds, golf course or sports field. Approach two kind of involves using a designated scout or scouts. A lot of times these scouts are typically have more training and pests that are common to your region. Sometimes you'll hire someone out for this or maybe appoint someone specific in your team to do this. But really they need to record pest accurately and provide all essential information and communicate any issues to those treatment decision makers. So if it's on a golf course, a golf course superintendent or someone who is going to purchase those fungicides or make those decisions. So spotting something suspicious in a turf stand is one thing, but really accurately diagnosing the problem is another thing entirely. As plant pathologists, we love to talk about the disease triangle. And that really relates important information to scouting. So when you're thinking about, is this a disease? One, think about what the host is. So for a pathogen to be able to cause a disease, a cultivar or susceptible variety or host to that pathogen has to be present. And then also the pathogen also must be there. So this is where we're looking for signs and symptoms of a disease when we're out scouting. So symptoms would be lesions or patch issues in turf or stand issues. A sign would be if you actually saw a fungal spore or mycelial growth. But for a pathogen to cause disease, the environmental conditions have to be conducive. So for a lot of times with turf grass diseases, the time of year is pivotal for if that pathogen can cause disease and when we will see those disease issues. So time is kind of considered a fourth kind of component to this disease triangle, but overall you have to have a susceptible host. A pathogen has to be able to cause disease on that host and conditions have to be conducive in terms of temperature, prolonged periods of leaf wetness, irrigation and that kind of thing for it to be able to cause disease. So there's some overall questions you can ask when you're scouting for turf grass diseases. The first one is what does the damage look like? And this is something to write down when you're looking at it or take pictures. Do you see several discrete patches that are similar in size and appearance? How large are the patches? Do they eventually coalesce and grow? So grow together and become one larger patch. What are the colors of the patches? Are weeds present? Because that can also indicate issues for stressed turf. Are there lesions on the turf grass leaves? Or do you see signs of fungal growth like you do with slime mold or some of the others where you can see some spores or fruiting bodies actually on the leaf blades? Also, where is the damage occurring? Is it on all of the grasses that are present? That might indicate maybe herbicide damage or nutritional deficiency. Or is it one specific species or cultivar? Is the entire area affected or is the damage concentrated in one certain area? Shady area, edges of fairways, southwaste-facing slopes, poorly drained areas, greens with little to no air circulation, sandy soils. And that can all help pinpoint whether it's a disease or herbicide damage or nutritional deficiency. So when are you seeing the damage? A lot of times if it's caused by a disease or even an insect, we normally see it roughly at the same time each season in turf grass diseases. So noting when the damage was first observed, are there any trees or shrubs nearby that may be kind of noticing what stage of development we are in early in the spring when stuff starts to green up and you're seeing flowers, you'll kind of know next year, okay, I saw the same issue last year, so it may be the same thing this year. What environmental conditions are present at the time of damage? So knowing the history of the turf grass, if it's a sports field or golf course, is really important for accurately diagnosing a turf grass problem. So sometimes just knowing was a herbicide recently applied or a fertilizer maybe had improper fertilization application because sometimes some of those damage can look like either nutritional deficiencies or sometimes they can look like patch diseases in turf. So soil texture and compaction, often related to traffic patterns, play a pivotal role in turf grass. Also soil moisture, leaf moisture, fertility levels, especially if you're not at proper nitrogen levels that plays a critical role in your risk for turf grass diseases. You know, thatch, layer, how thick is it? It's density, it's moisture, air circulation, mowing height and frequency. Sometimes if you're using dull leaf mower blades, those leaf blades can become corn and more susceptible to some diseases. Also daily and nightly temperatures, humidity and rainfall can all indicate if you're having a pest issue or some other issue as well. So when you're outscouting, there's some basic tools that can help not only for turf grass diseases but also insects as well or just soil issues if you're having a pH issue or nutritional issues in the soil. You definitely wanna have a sharp knife or hand trowel as well as plastic bags and bottles and a pen and sharpie marker if you need to collect a sample. Hand lenses are really great to help see a little bit closer if you're having certain insect issues or sometimes it can help you see spores on lesions or smaller lesions for turf grass diseases. Pest and disease guides, especially the APS, Compendium of Turf Grass Diseases is something great to have on hand especially if you're new to diagnosing turf grass diseases. There's a lot of helpful information in there in terms of pictures and management strategies. Dish soap will help flush some insects out. It's really not critical for turf grass diseases but if you're making a kit I wanted to give you some good pointers overall. Soil thermometer is also helpful, a cup cutter or a soil probe especially if you have to take soil samples. So in terms of managing for turf grass diseases first I just kinda wanted to give some basics in turf grass disease management like the main key points when you're thinking about managing for turf grass diseases. First of all, even before a field gets laid with sod proper landscape design really goes a long way in helping minimizing turf grass diseases, insect issues, also drainage issues and doing proper landscape design to avoid those low areas that collect water or soil that's heavily compacted. And this really is a key component in terms of prevention for pest buildup. You also wanna maintain proper nitrogen levels and think about your nitrogen sources as well as they have some impacts on some turf grass diseases. Monium nitrate and calcium nitrate have been shown to increase the severity of some diseases like take-all root rot, whereas acidifying nitrogen sources such as monium sulfate or ammonium chloride and slow release fertilizers are typically preferred as they don't increase your risk for some of those turf grass diseases. Proper irrigation timing is critical. We've been really dry except for this week we're getting some wet weather. So that meant more irrigation especially in turf. So just because it's dry, we think, oh, well, we're not gonna be as at risk for full year diseases of turf, but if you're over watering and you're prolonging those periods of leaf wetness, if you're watering later in the evening and those leaf blades are staying wet through the night that can increase your risk for, you know, gray leaf spot or other full year diseases. You also wanna remove excessive thatch by vertical mowing or power raking and also maintain proper mowing heights and soil pH just to avoid stress to the turf. Now, once you identify a turf grass diseases, you can use fungicides preventatively. I just wanna stress that not all fungicides are created equal and there's not one just silver bullet for all turf grass diseases. This is just a quick summary table. It's not an exhaustive list by any means. There are several more fungicides labeled for commercial turf grass. This is just a short table to show that while some like Exoxy-Strowman may have some good efficacy against brown patch, you know, with spring dead spot, it's very low in terms of efficacy. And where something like chlorothalinol is labeled for brown patch and gray leaf spot, it's not really labeled or very effective for take all root rot or spring dead spot. So check those labels carefully, follow those labels and only apply the fungicide for the plant problem that you have. So now that I've given you some scouting tips and general management practices for turf, I wanted to use two diseases, a soil-borne disease as well as a foliar pathogen, just as two examples on how we can take those tips that I covered and accurately identifying some turf grass disease issues. So we've seen a real increase in take all root rot. It's pretty prevalent disease in Alabama. It's most destructive on St. Augustine grass. It's a soil-borne pathogen, but it is also known to occur on ultra-draught commutagrass punting greens and some other warm season grasses. This pathogen is also thought to cause a undescribed patch disease of centipede. Factors that lead to disease outbreaks. So this is kind of some of the questions, what environmental conditions are going on? What's the history of the lawn that you're looking at or the sports fielder punting green? Factors that lead to disease outbreaks, frequent heavy spring and summer rains, heavy lining, the use of nitrate, nitrogen containing fertilizers, if you're deficient in certain micronutrients, excessive thatch, low mowing heights and poor drainage and overwatering will all increase your risk for take all root rot. In terms of symptoms, they'll first appear in spring and summer, kind of as a yellowing of the leaves, which gives a general yellow-green cast from afar. This can easily be confused with chinchbug damage or certain nutrient deficiencies or drought stress. But this problem will progressively get worse and later lead to severe thinning of the turf, kind of in circular to irregular patches that may be three to up to 15 feet in diameter and will occur as those infected stolons die. The heaviest damage will often occur on sunny sites and patches of declining turf can persist from one year to the next. It can easily be confused with brown patch, however, leaves are rarely damaged with take all root rot. So you're not gonna get those leaf lesions, but the roots will become dark brown to black and will be badly rotted. So you can easily pull infected turf grass away from the ground because of those badly rotted. So in terms of management, nitrogen sources have a huge impact on take all root rot. As I mentioned, those ammonium nitrate and calcium nitrate sources have been shown to increase your risk for severity of take all root rot and some other similar diseases. So you wanna use those acidifying nitrogen sources. And you wanna apply those recommended amounts of nitrogen and other nutrients according to what is needed in your turf grass. Over application or under application of nitrogen can increase your stress to your turf and also increase your risk for disease development. If you've had take all root rot issues in the past, they suggest maintaining a soil pH about 5.5 to six. Also raise cutting height on drought stress lawns, maintain timely irrigation and improve drainage. Poorly drained soils will be more at risk for not only take all root rot but other diseases as well. Recovery of St. Augustine is often poor and sometimes a complete renovation of take all damaged lawns are often necessary. Fungicides are only recommended as preventative treatment. So you really need to make timely decisions, continue to scout and apply fungicides before the disease gets too far progressed as it's really hard to get recovery with fungicides. So the last example I'll go over is dollar spots. So shifting from a soil borne pathogen to a foliar pathogen. This is probably one of the most widespread turf grass diseases in Alabama. It affects Bermuda grass, Soysa grass, fine fescue and bent grass. It may also be found on Centipede and Bahia grass and on rare occasions on St. Augustine. It's most commonly seen in late summer and early fall and factors that lead to disease outbreaks are just prolonged periods of leaf wetness. So this can be due to heavy dews in late spring from heavy rains. It's been drier this year, but so frequent irrigation can also prolong periods of leaf wetness, as I mentioned. Wet overcast weather will increase your risk as well, as well as nutrient deficient turf, especially if it's deficient in nitrogen or more prone to dollar spot. Drought stress, low mowing height, excessive thatch accumulation and low air movement can all increase your risk for outbreak severity. So remember those cultural practices are designed to decrease the stress to turf grass diseases, as well as also reduce areas for the pathogen to really thrive. So symptoms for dollar spot can kind of vary depending on your mowing height on a putting green. Dollar spot will appear as small discrete patches that are about the size of a dollar coin that are often bleached white or light tannin color on turf that has mowing heights greater than a half inch, these spots may be larger of up to six inches or more in diameter. Infected leaves will often remain upright and will have white or light tannin colored lesions that often have light reddish brown margins. Eventually these lesions will expand and cause the leaf blades to girdle and parts of the leaves will die back. Lesions may not be seen on that close cut turf, but you will still see some die back from the tip that will be kind of white and light tannin color. If a lot of moisture is present, especially in the morning, you may see some short fuzzy white mycelial growth kind of in that turf stand as well. So in terms of management, there are some resistant varieties, two dollar spots. So if you're interested in those, please just don't hesitate to reach out. I can give you a more exhaustive list, but apply those recommended amounts of nitrogen and other nutrients, maintain proper irrigation timing, water more early in the morning so you can get that turf to dry out and you're not prolonging those periods of leaf wetness. Remove that excessive thatch. Also when mowing, it can help with dollar spot if you remove and dispose clippings taken from infected areas rather than leaving it just on the turf grass, which can spread inoculum. For this one, you also need to apply fungicides preventatively, but one thing to notice when you're looking at the labels for dollar spot turf grass fungicides, some of these carry a high to moderate risk for fungicide resistance development. So this is where following the label is critical where you're using rotated chemistries or not applying more than the recommended amount or only doing one to two applications of a fungicide per season before rotating to an alternate chemistry. So I know that was a very quick rundown of how to scout and manage for turf grass diseases, but here's my contact information, my email, cell phone and office phone as well. I'm located in the office services building on main campus in the same building of the plant diagnostic lab as well as the soil testing lab. So if you ever have any turf grass questions don't hesitate to reach out for fungicide information, please check out the commercial turf and lawns guide. It has not only fungicide information but also some nematode control as well. And with that, I can take any questions.