... when she quoted Ben Franklin, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Turfgrass management is no different than any other aspect of life, it is always better to be proactive as opposed to reactive.
As previously noted, annual bluegrass weevil (ABW) was discovered on property last year. This is a new pest to southeast Michigan as the first confirmed cases were documented in June of 2022. Last year, some collar damage on holes #3, #4, and #11 indicated this pest was at thresholds that could cause damage. Despite multiple insecticide applications, we were chasing this aggressive pest for the entire 2023 season.
This year has been a different story. Knowing that we have ABW on property, this off-season we developed a comprehensive preventative program that has proven to hold up great. We identified several hot spots which included collars, tees and fairways thorough out the golf course. We were able to track the adult ABW migration through rigorous daily scouting starting in mid-April. This in combination with growing degree day (GDD) modeling aided in the precisely timed insecticide applications to decrease ABW populations and keep the pest under damage thresholds.
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