The Turf Zone Podcast

Pennsylvania Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The sports field management industry continues to evolve and offer many excellent career opportunities — but more and more often there are not enough qualified personnel to fill open positions. KAFMO leaders have committed to a partnership with the Sports Turf Managers Association and Future Farmers of America to address this gap and attract the next generation of turfgrass students in Pennsylvania. It was a natural next step. As KAFMO President Dan Douglas points out, “FFA members are already aware of the impact the Green Industry has on everyone’s lives. Introducing a niche segment of the industry such as turfgrass science exposes students to a major that they can easily relate to.”

 

Awareness and Opportunities

STMA Education Manager Kristen Althouse, who is spearheading the FFA Turfgrass Science program nationwide, estimates that 90% of graduates who earn a degree in turfgrass science will land a job right out of college. However, current enrollment in turfgrass science at colleges and universities does not reflect this high rate of success. In a survey conducted by Golf Course Management magazine, when 40 schools were asked about turfgrass program enrollment, 70% of them reported lower enrollment compared to 10 years ago. One of the challenges contributing to the labor shortage, according to Althouse, is that high school students are simply unaware of turfgrass science as a career path. “STMA is therefore working with FFA to create awareness and opportunities for young people to enter the industry and to make a turfgrass science curriculum available nationally for secondary agriculture programs. Everyone at STMA – the board of directors, the members – is really passionate about this career. They see the long-term benefits of involving these students in the industry and they want to see it prosper,” says Althouse.

PSU Senior Extension Educator Jeff Fowler, who recorded several training sessions for the new FFA program in Pennsylvania, agrees enthusiastically. “Our goal is to provide educational material that can be useful to high school aged students in Pennsylvania, expose them to a potential new field of study, and perhaps a new career opportunity,” he says. Many high school agriculture programs across the nation use the FFA to enhance the leadership and experiential learning portions of their program. Through Career and Leadership Development Events, participating FFA members in grades 7 to 12 are challenged to develop critical thinking skills and effective decision-making skills, foster teamwork, and promote communication while recognizing the value of ethical competition and individual achievement.

STMA’s ultimate goal is to create a turfgrass science Career Development Event at the National FFA level. But first a turfgrass science CDE must be implemented at state levels. To date, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Virginia, and South Carolina have successfully hosted turfgrass science CDEs in their states and now the Pennsylvania FFA has approved a Turfgrass Science CDE for 2021, to take place in May. This inaugural event was originally planned for 2020, but the pandemic forced its cancellation. The 2021 event will take place virtually. Individuals or teams of 3–4 students may compete. The event will consist of a general knowledge exam of 100 comprehensive questions on turfgrass science and management, an identification segment on weeds, turfgrass varieties, insects, and biotic and abiotic damage, and an oral presentation of solutions to a sports field management scenario.

ATA Turf Times – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

Austin Hagan earned his Bachelor of Science in Biology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; He later attended Ohio State University where he received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Hagan’s areas of expertise are in Etiology and Management of Diseases of Amenity Crops, Peanut, Cotton, and Bioenergy Feedstock Crops. “I was fortunate to work with Dr. Philip Larsen, Turfgrass Research and Teaching faculty at Ohio State, as well as Dr. William Gazaway, Extension Plant Pathologist, at Auburn University. Each of them influenced the direction of my career.

During his work on his Master’s and Ph.D., Dr. Hagan focused on Identification, Epidemiology, and Management of Diseases of Cool-Season Turfgrasses. Opportunities for research projects, along with funding for his graduate education program, were main factors leading him to pursue turfgrass pathology as a specialization. With the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and later, Auburn University, his crop responsibilities included turfgrass, ornamentals, small grain, and peanut pathology. Austin was encouraged and expanded his extension and research activities.

With time, Dr. Hagan’s responsibilities shifted from extension to applied field research. His primary focus was on ornamentals, particularly small flowering trees, along with corn, cotton, peanut, and bioindustrial feedstock crops. “I came to really enjoy conducting field research projects, which allowed me to provide timely information to extension clientele, as well as expand my own professional knowledge base.”

As Dr. Hagan further stated “During my career, I was surprised to see the dramatic changes in research that led to the emergence and application of molecular techniques to enhance disease diagnosis and turfgrass breeding. The objective to identify desirable traits in breeding material, along with the introduction of those traits to produce agronomically superior lines were new methods that I didn’t foresee.”

Fresh challenges come nearly every day from every direction. “Professionals must take advantage of educational along with professional opportunities to prepare them to meet and overcome those challenges, as well as maintain a high level of professional productivity and personal integrity.

Dr. Hagan is married to Susan Hagan, a retired teacher. He enjoys relaxing with Susan at their beach home and saltwater fishing during his spare time. They have one son, Kent Hagan. Kent is an MD who specializes in sports medicine and is a staff physician with Advanced Orthopedics in Fayetteville, AR. Kent is married to Caitlin Hagan, a Program Manager with Jefferson University. They have one son, Wheeler, who is one year old.

Dr. Hagan is a member of the American Peanut Research and Education Society and the American Phytopathological Society. He has received many honors over the course of his career. He is Alumni Professor, Auburn University; received the Past President Award from the American Peanut Research and Education Society in 2002 and 2009; American Peanut Research and Education Society Dow AgroScience Extension Award; a Fellow of the American Peanut Research and Extension Society; the Porter-Henegar Memorial Award, Southern Nursery Association; Auburn University Scholarship Incentive Award (2013, 2015, 2016), Auburn University College of Agriculture Deans Grantsmanship Award (2014, 2015, 2018) Auburn University College of Agriculture Senior Extension Award.

We thank Dr. Hagan for his distinguished service in his career and contributions to our industry!

Mississippi Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. In this episode of Mississippi Turfgrass, we’re speaking Dr. Maria Tomaso-Peterson, Research Professor in Plant Pathology at Mississippi State University. Maria, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today.

Maria Tomaso-Peterson: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be with you this morning.

TTZ: Let’s start in your early years and get a little background about your career path and your education. So where did you start on your path to becoming a plant pathologist?

MTP: Well, I started in ornamental horticulture and I got my B.S. degree in that and in that curriculum, I was very interested in plant propagation, and this was back in the early 80s, so a long time ago and I was very interested in tissue culture, which was state-of-the-art back in that time. I was interested in pursuing a Master’s degree in tissue culture, and at Mississippi State, the only person that was working in tissue culture was Dr. Jeff Kranz in turf. I’d had his class, turfgrass management, my last year and I really enjoyed that and the students I met in there. I met my lifetime friend, Melody Fraser, who’s at PureSeed testing now. I started with his program doing tissue culture in turfgrass and my project was to select disease resistance for creeping bentgrass germplasm. I kinda was like, “Oh, good grief, fungi.” I hated plant pathology class, I thought “What am I going to do?” But I settled in and I was working with rhizoctonia solani, which I learned to love working with that organism. After my Master’s, I became a research assistant under Dr. Kranz and I continued my Masters work, which was the in vitro cell selection for brown patch resistant germplasm for creeping bentgrass. Then I attended an international turf research conference, it was in the U.S. that year, down in Palm Beach, and I knew I wanted to move on in my education, so while I was down there, I attended a lot of talks. I listened to a talk by Dr. Monica Elliott, she was describing bermudagrass decline for the first time to an audience, and I was just taken aback and just was like this is what I want to do. So I started on that career path while working as a research assistant on my Ph.D., so it took me a long time to get my Ph.D., but I think it’s kind of interesting that I’m ending my career working with ectotrophic root infecting fungi that cause bermudagrass decline or take-all root rot. It’s just kind of interesting the paths that life lends to you, the doors that open. It’s beena while, but it seems like it was just yesterday, and it’s just been great. So that’s how I got here.

TTZ: I always like to hear who shepherded folks along their path and their career, and you mentioned Dr. Krans. Who else helped you determine your route?

MTP: Well, once I determined I wanted to go into plant pathology, I had a turfgrass management student working for me at the time, Gary McCullough, who was kind of instrumental in some of the paths I took, a very dear lifelong friend, and he told me, “You need to teach turfgrass diseases to our student.” And I was like, “Oh, I can probably do that.” So after

seven years of working with Dr. Krans, I had an opportunity to become the research assistant for Dr. Larry Trevathan, who was in plant pathology, and he was working with weed in turfgrass, so he was in turfgrass trials and I talked with Dr. Krans and decided if I was going to do plant pathology, that was where I needed to be. But at that time, I told both of them that my objective in changing, in doing this was to develop an emphasis in turf pathology at Mississippi State for turfgrass management students. Now it’s Golf and Turfgrass Management,

Virginia Turfgrass Journal – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. In this episode of Virginia Turfgrass, we’re talking to Ray Funkhouser, VTC Board Member. Welcome Ray, how are you today?

Ray Funkhouser: Very good, thank you.

 

TTZ: First of all, thanks for taking some time to chat with us for this podcast episode. Let’s jump right in and talk about your work in the turfgrass industry. We know you’re retired now, but tell me a little bit about your job in the past and how you got to where you are now, happily retired and living the good life.

RF: Well, actually I came into the turf industry about halfway through my professional career. My entire career has been involved with, particularly, the crop protection chemical side of the business and started off on the agricultural side, working with a number of crops starting off with the fruit crops here in Virginia and moving over to a lot of the agronomic crops. Then I had the opportunity to move over to the specialty side, which included turf, which was always an area of interest for me. So half of my career was spent specifically in the turf side, the turf management side.

 

TTZ: How big of a change was that to go from the agricultural side and move into turfgrass?

RF: Very easy to do – it’s kind of a natural transition because there’s so many similarities between the two. We’re dealing with plants, we’re dealing with a lot of botany and how plants grow, how they function, how they thrive and the threats that can attack them. So it’s really dealing with just a little bit of a different crop of the end result of what you’re trying to accomplish. But many of the techniques are very similar. Then you combine that with the fact that a lot of the chemistries that we use on both sides are the same chemistries. So understanding mode of actions and also weed life cycles are very similar for both the agricultural side and the turf side. It’s just getting to know very specifically what you’re dealing with and what end result are you trying to obtain.

 

TTZ: Where did you start with your education? What made you decide to go into this field and what route did you take from there? 

RF: I guess I want to say I’ve been very blessed in my career that I had exposure to a number of areas which truly led to where I ended up. When I was coming out of high school I knew I wanted to have a career in science, I wanted to have a job where I could be using science on a daily basis, and particularly on the plant side. I grew up, I was one generation removed from the farm that my father grew up on, but my family went back to that farm often. So I was surrounded by a lot of agriculture, and I liked that area. So I decided to go to, at the time it was called Delaware Valley College, which is now Delaware Valley University. I was originally accepted as a horticulture major, but I knew I needed to go on and get an advanced degree and in talking to some people that had gone before me, they mentioned about the amount of chemistry that was needed when you went into the graduate programs and some of them had to make up chemistry courses later. So I changed my major to biology just because, looking at the curriculum, I felt I was going to be better prepared for going on for graduate study with all the courses, and I wouldn’t have to so-called “make up” any weak areas. Which in fact was the case when I went on to graduate school, I was the only one in the group that I came in with that wasn’t lacking in one of the science areas that had to take some undergraduate classes to kind of get caught up. But specifically getting into the agricultural crop protection area, I was very fortunate in that at the end of my freshman year in college – and we had to work a total of 20 weeks during out time at the school to graduate,

ATA Turf Times – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to the Turf Zone. In this episode of Alabama Turfgrass, I’m joined by our ATA President Joe Collins, and Vice President Ben Anderson. Joe is Landscape and Sports Turf Manager at Samford University and Ben is the Golf Course Superintendent at Arrowhead Country Club. Ben and Joe, thank you so much for joining me.

Joe Collins: Thank you, Julie. 

Ben Anderson: Thanks for having us.

 

TTZ: In this episode we’re talking State of the Association, so this is just an update from Ben and Joe about ATA coming out of 2020 and going into 2021, what we can look forward to and what we can expect. So we’re going to start at the beginning. Joe, will you tell me about – how was Alabama Turfgrass Association formed and a little bit about its membership?

JC: Sure. The ATA was formed 56 years ago to get together people like Ben and I and all our peers around the state to educate and connect and learn more about turf. We have currently 650 members representing all segments of the turfgrass industry – we’ve got lawn care specialists, sports turf managers, golf course superintendents, landscape contractors, landscape maintenance professionals, sod producers, industry suppliers and vendors, professors, researchers, extension agents and students. We cover just about everybody who has anything to do with turfgrass in the state.

 

TTZ: So that’s a wide range of different turf professionals and I know that, you mentioned, that education is a really big focus. How does ATA accomplish that education mission for its members?

JC: Last year we had the issue with COVID, we had to restrict all of our meetings based on the regulations that the state put in. We could not get together face-to-face as we normally would have. Normally we’d have six road show seminars in conjunction with Auburn University and their turfgrass unit, then every other year we have a lawn and landscape workshop, then the alternate year we have a sports turf field day where people who have specific connections to those types of fields can get together with their peers and learn in a close-in setting with the hands-on projects. We also support the Auburn University Turfgrass Field Day Research unit, and we also have the poa annua golf tournament that we sponsor as a form of raising money and to have a little fun with the members. We also are sponsors of the Deep South Turf Expo every fall, which we have a regional meeting with people from the states that surround us – Mississippi, Louisiana and ourselves – and we get together and have a good time and learn a lot about turf and just get together with our friends and have a little fellowship together around turf. And also provide some education with our membership and their membership and everybody get their CEU credit points and stay certified.

 

TTZ: We know that with over 650 members like you mentioned earlier, and these events that are typically annual events, that you didn’t get to do those in 2020 because of COVID – how has ATA been functioning financially without those events?

JC: Good question. We have luckily had good board members over the past several years that have really helped us to bank a number of dollars in case of happenings like this COVID issue. We raise money on these events to sponsor the association and to sponsor the research but our vendors and sponsors have just been outstanding, they’ve stayed with us. We can’t thank them enough for their participation with the ATA and how important they are to us and our survival. Like I said, we’ve had memberships and boards past that have helped us save a little money for these rainy days and right now we’re in pretty good shape, so we’re in good shape going into this year, we’re hoping for some meetings coming back on that would allow us to once again, fill up the coffers and help us maintain our edu...

New England Blade – Evan C. Mascitti and Andrew McNitt, PhD

A baseball often touches two different surfaces during the same play. This sets baseball apart from other ball sports. Most ground balls take their first bounce on the turf and are fielded on the infield skin (Figure 1). The concentration of play in this small area means that infield playability consumes much of the grounds crew’s focus. Experienced managers know instinctively when the ball is reacting the way they want, and they can produce a consistent surface despite changing weather conditions. Playability can be an ambiguous term because it is easy to observe but hard to describe.

This article unpacks infield playability by combining practical observations with bite-size pieces of physics. We will cover the following ideas:

1. Consistency is king

2. Components of speed

3. Corkboard = plasticity + stiffness

Figure 1: Most action occurs on the infield skin.

Consistency is king

Above all else, infielders want a consistent, predictable surface. This means no surprises about how the ball will react from one hop to the next, and that the field will play identically throughout a game and over the season. Elite athletes can field almost any ball, fast or slow – so long as the bounces are the same, each and every time. Infielders prefer ground balls to “hug” the surface: a shallow path makes the ball easier to track and collect. The grass and dirt areas should have similar speed and the transition between them should be seamless.

Predictability is crucial for players to be able to do their jobs. If the final hop is deflected by just a few degrees, the ball can easily carom off the heel of a player’s glove or scoot beyond his reach.

Components of speed

Players and coaches sometimes ask us to “speed up” or “slow down” the infield, usually by adjusting the cutting height of the turf. Ball response is more nuanced than fast vs. slow, and canopy height plays only a minor role. However, it has been said that perception is reality, so a perceived change may satisfy such a request – even if we fib about having lowered the reels by 1/8″ or so. Ball response is divisible into three important elements: pace, bounce, and spin.

Pace

Pace is the relative velocity of a ball after impact. Infield pace is mostly determined by hardness and friction. It is measured as a simple ratio, the Coefficient of Restitution (COR):

There is limited research on infield pace, but data suggest that soil properties affect COR more than cutting height or thatch. Dr. Jim Brosnan measured COR on real infields and on research plots (Brosnan and McNitt, 2008a; b; 2011). Infield COR ranged from 0.4 to 0.6, meaning a ball retained 40 to 60 % of its initial velocity after the first bounce. COR was generally higher on skinned surfaces than synthetic turf, which had a similar (but slightly higher) COR than natural grass.

In the work by Dr. Brosnan, pace was closely related to surface hardness. Hardness is easy to measure with the familiar Clegg hammer or the F-355 device (for synthetic infields). Brosnan and McNitt (2008a) found that most infield skins had Clegg values well over 100 Gmax – much higher than values recommended for turf areas (Figure 2). However, it is worth noting that some fields in this study were substantially drier than typical game moisture. In a baseball context, hardness may be more useful for managing playability than safety, as baseball players are never tackled and rarely become injured by falling on the surface.

Figure 2: Surface hardness on baseball infields generally exceeds values recommended for American football.

Ball-to-surface friction is determined by soil texture, presence of conditioner, and the all-important water content (Goodall et al., 2005).

Tennessee Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

Tell us about your work at Ensworth and what that includes– your fields, areas you manage and how many people are on your team.

I’ve been at Ensworth for five years. I started as an assistant at our lower school campus, which is just off of West End. I’m now the Head of Grounds at the high school campus, but I oversee the lower school campus as well. We have 13 natural grass fields, about six of those are premiere, performance-style fields that we maintain at a higher level.

Between the two campuses, we sit somewhere between 150 and 200 acres of total area. I oversee the landscaping through a third party, which is Brightview. They take care of our landscape, our hardscapes and all that that entails. We have a great partnership with them. They do a fantastic job of maintaining our campus grounds. My crew consists of me and four guys, and we oversee all of our sports fields and irrigation.

 

The Ensworth School is a really well-known private school, and you’ve got some some top-level athletes there. There are kids who are playing with goals of, for instance, playing Division I football, and you’ve really got some pretty high standards there. Tell us about maintaining premiere properties for those athletes.

 My crew takes a lot of pride in knowing that players that play on our fields go to college. We play a very small part of it, but when we see a kid signed for Minnesota, Tennessee or Ohio State, we take a lot of pride in knowing that we provided them a high-level sports field, but at the same time a very safe sports field. When they play at home, I’m always very nervous when we see an injury. I’m immediately messaging the trainer – what was it? Was it caused by the field, was it caused by something else? They’ve honestly gotten in the habit of texting me as soon as they know, saying ‘not field-related’ or whatever. But knowing that these players, they’re going to the next level after playing here, our ultimate goal is to make sure that this is the best field they’ve ever played on. Not only from an aesthetics point of view, but from a safety point of view.

 

With the large scope of grounds and fields that you maintain, what’s the biggest challenge?

 That’s a complex question… the hardest part is being able to do what we need to do when we need to do it. You accomplish that by building relationships with your coaches, and them knowing that what we do is important, so they’re usually really flexible in allowing us to do our jobs, knowing that we’re doing it for a reason. So scheduling is probably the toughest aspect.

Weather changes everything. I can be planning to go out and aerate a field today, but we might get two inches of rain the night before and I can’t accomplish my goal. So being able to be flexible, not only because of Mother Nature, but with the coaches, is probably the most important. It’s not the most challenging, because we’ve built such a good relationship with the coaches. The most challenging is accomplishing everything we need to accomplish within a certain amount of time.

 

At the TTA awards this year, you got the 2020 high school field of the year for the football field at Ensworth, and you received a leadership award with STMA. You also presented at the TTA conference. What does that recognition mean to you?

 The leadership award was presented to a group of us that were on a committee for some work we did with STMA this year. That was a fantastic honor – honestly if I didn’t tell you I almost came to tears when I found out, I’d be lying to you. But you know every honor we’ve been presented from the very end of 2019, through the beginning of 2021, has been a great honor. Being presented Field of the Year was amazing because we didn’t apply for i...

North Carolina Turfgrass – Scott McElroy, Ph.D. – Professor, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences and Jim Harris – Research Associate, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences, Auburn University

The following article will discuss select new products that will be available for turfgrass industry use in 2021. The discussion of these products is not an endorsement of the products and exclusion of products that may be newly available is not opposition to those products. Products discussed have been researched in Dr. McElroy’s research group and some available data is presented. Always follow the label regardless of what any article may say about a product. The label is the law.

New herbicide products do not necessarily mean new active ingredients. New herbicide product names may simply be repackaged active ingredients or novel mixtures of previously available active ingredients. Novel active ingredients are a rarity with respect to new herbicide products. The lack of a novel active ingredient does not necessarily mean that the products do not bring a new control angle to the turfgrass industry. Novel combinations of older active ingredients can provide additive or even synergistic herbicide effects and can broaden the spectrum of weeds controlled. But with new combinations it is important to understand the activity of individual active ingredients contained in the products.

 

Coastal

Coastal herbicide is a new combination of older products – imazaquin, prodiamine, and simazine. Imazaquin previously labeled as Image can now be purchased as the stand alone product Scepter T&O. Prodiamine was first labeled as Barricade and simazine was first labeled as Princep (There are other product names, it is simply easier to refer to the first product name used).

New herbicide mixtures primarily target new combinations of post herbicides — Trimec-type herbicides or herbicides with mixtures of sulfentrazone (Dismiss) and quinclorac (Drive). Echelon is a combination of prodiamine and sulfentrazone, pre and post, respectively, but few (if any) others exist. Coastal is another unique combination because it also combines both pre and post herbicides. Prodiamine is strictly a preemergence herbicide with no postemergence activity. Simazine is used for post winter weed control, primarily Poa annua, but it can provide 14–28 days of residual. Imazaquin is a postemergence herbicide with minimal residual activity.

Coastal is labeled for use on bermudagrass, centipedegrass, St. Augustinegrass, and zoysiagrass. Like the name implies, it is primarily targeted at warm-season turf along the gulf coast. Being registered for weed control on the four-primary warm-season grasses is important for lawn care because it does not require the changing of products from one turfgrass lawn to the next.

Research conducted in 2019–2020 evaluated Coastal in September and October for Poa annua and winter annual broadleaf control. Coastal was applied at 32 or 64 fl oz/a with or without metsulfuron (MSM) at 0.5 oz/a. A comparison treatment Specticle at 6.5 fl oz/a plus metsulfuron at 0.5 fl oz/a was included.

* All treatments controlled Poa annua completely regarless of split or single applications (data not shown). The additional benefit of Coastal is that it also provided effective control of the annual broadleaf, small hop clover (Trifolium dubium; Figure 1). Coastal with and without metsulfuron reduced hop clover cover to 2–4%, while hop clover cover was > 25% in non-treated plots. The combination of residual activity from prodiamine and simazine combined with the postemergence activity of simazine and imazaquin likely lead to the effective control.

 

Vexis

Vexis is a new herbicide product containing the new active ingredient pyrimisulfan.

MTC Turf News – Scott McElroy, Ph.D. – Professor, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences and Jim Harris – Research Associate, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences, Auburn University

The following article will discuss select new products that will be available for turfgrass industry use in 2021. The discussion of these products is not an endorsement of the products and exclusion of products that may be newly available is not opposition to those products. Products discussed have been researched in Dr. McElroy’s research group and some available data is presented. Always follow the label regardless of what any article may say about a product. The label is the law.

New herbicide products do not necessarily mean new active ingredients. New herbicide product names may simply be repackaged active ingredients or novel mixtures of previously available active ingredients. Novel active ingredients are a rarity with respect to new herbicide products. The lack of a novel active ingredient does not necessarily mean that the products do not bring a new control angle to the turfgrass industry. Novel combinations of older active ingredients can provide additive or even synergistic herbicide effects and can broaden the spectrum of weeds controlled. But with new combinations it is important to understand the activity of individual active ingredients contained in the products.

 

Coastal

Coastal herbicide is a new combination of older products – imazaquin, prodiamine, and simazine. Imazaquin previously labeled as Image can now be purchased as the stand alone product Scepter T&O. Prodiamine was first labeled as Barricade and simazine was first labeled as Princep (There are other product names, it is simply easier to refer to the first product name used).

New herbicide mixtures primarily target new combinations of post herbicides — Trimec-type herbicides or herbicides with mixtures of sulfentrazone (Dismiss) and quinclorac (Drive). Echelon is a combination of prodiamine and sulfentrazone, pre and post, respectively, but few (if any) others exist. Coastal is another unique combination because it also combines both pre and post herbicides. Prodiamine is strictly a preemergence herbicide with no postemergence activity. Simazine is used for post winter weed control, primarily Poa annua, but it can provide 14–28 days of residual. Imazaquin is a postemergence herbicide with minimal residual activity.

Coastal is labeled for use on bermudagrass, centipedegrass, St. Augustinegrass, and zoysiagrass. Like the name implies, it is primarily targeted at warm-season turf along the gulf coast. Being registered for weed control on the four-primary warm-season grasses is important for lawn care because it does not require the changing of products from one turfgrass lawn to the next.

Research conducted in 2019–2020 evaluated Coastal in September and October for Poa annua and winter annual broadleaf control. Coastal was applied at 32 or 64 fl oz/a with or without metsulfuron (MSM) at 0.5 oz/a. A comparison treatment Specticle at 6.5 fl oz/a plus metsulfuron at 0.5 fl oz/a was included.

* All treatments controlled Poa annua completely regarless of split or single applications (data not shown). The additional benefit of Coastal is that it also provided effective control of the annual broadleaf, small hop clover (Trifolium dubium; Figure 1). Coastal with and without metsulfuron reduced hop clover cover to 2–4%, while hop clover cover was > 25% in non-treated plots. The combination of residual activity from prodiamine and simazine combined with the postemergence activity of simazine and imazaquin likely lead to the effective control.

 

Vexis

Vexis is a new herbicide product containing the new active ingredient pyrimisulfan.

Arkansas Turfgrass – Scott McElroy, Ph.D. – Professor, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences and Jim Harris – Research Associate, Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences, Auburn University

The following article will discuss select new products that will be available for turfgrass industry use in 2021. The discussion of these products is not an endorsement of the products and exclusion of products that may be newly available is not opposition to those products. Products discussed have been researched in Dr. McElroy’s research group and some available data is presented. Always follow the label regardless of what any article may say about a product. The label is the law.

New herbicide products do not necessarily mean new active ingredients. New herbicide product names may simply be repackaged active ingredients or novel mixtures of previously available active ingredients. Novel active ingredients are a rarity with respect to new herbicide products. The lack of a novel active ingredient does not necessarily mean that the products do not bring a new control angle to the turfgrass industry. Novel combinations of older active ingredients can provide additive or even synergistic herbicide effects and can broaden the spectrum of weeds controlled. But with new combinations it is important to understand the activity of individual active ingredients contained in the products.

 

Coastal

Coastal herbicide is a new combination of older products – imazaquin, prodiamine, and simazine. Imazaquin previously labeled as Image can now be purchased as the stand alone product Scepter T&O. Prodiamine was first labeled as Barricade and simazine was first labeled as Princep (There are other product names, it is simply easier to refer to the first product name used).

New herbicide mixtures primarily target new combinations of post herbicides — Trimec-type herbicides or herbicides with mixtures of sulfentrazone (Dismiss) and quinclorac (Drive). Echelon is a combination of prodiamine and sulfentrazone, pre and post, respectively, but few (if any) others exist. Coastal is another unique combination because it also combines both pre and post herbicides. Prodiamine is strictly a preemergence herbicide with no postemergence activity. Simazine is used for post winter weed control, primarily Poa annua, but it can provide 14–28 days of residual. Imazaquin is a postemergence herbicide with minimal residual activity.

Coastal is labeled for use on bermudagrass, centipedegrass, St. Augustinegrass, and zoysiagrass. Like the name implies, it is primarily targeted at warm-season turf along the gulf coast. Being registered for weed control on the four-primary warm-season grasses is important for lawn care because it does not require the changing of products from one turfgrass lawn to the next.

Research conducted in 2019–2020 evaluated Coastal in September and October for Poa annua and winter annual broadleaf control. Coastal was applied at 32 or 64 fl oz/a with or without metsulfuron (MSM) at 0.5 oz/a. A comparison treatment Specticle at 6.5 fl oz/a plus metsulfuron at 0.5 fl oz/a was included.

* All treatments controlled Poa annua completely regarless of split or single applications (data not shown). The additional benefit of Coastal is that it also provided effective control of the annual broadleaf, small hop clover (Trifolium dubium; Figure 1). Coastal with and without metsulfuron reduced hop clover cover to 2–4%, while hop clover cover was > 25% in non-treated plots. The combination of residual activity from prodiamine and simazine combined with the postemergence activity of simazine and imazaquin likely lead to the effective control.

 

Vexis

Vexis is a new herbicide product containing the new active ingredient pyrimisulfan.