The Turf Zone Podcast

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

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode, we’re talking to John Kaminski, Ph.D., Professor at Penn State. Welcome John, thanks for joining me.

John Kaminski: Thanks for having me.

TTZ: So let’s jump right in to the ResistPoa Project. We know that controlling annual bluegrass can be a challenge for turfgrass managers, and this project is combining efforts of many researchers and participants. So for your part of the project, I understand that there are many objectives. Let’s start off with talking about what objectives you are working on specifically.

JK: Well, we’re involved in, I don’t know how many, it’s a lot, but several aspects of the project. We’re the lead on two of them. The two that we’re the lead on are first seedling emergence patterns, so there’s several of us around the country that are basically monitoring seedling emergence throughout the entire year. So we’re trying to be able to model seedling emergence based on temperature, soil moisture throughout the various zones in the United States in hopes that we can time some of our pre-emergence or post-emergence herbicides can be applied at those specific timings.

So that’s one that we’re taking the lead on. The other one that we’re taking the lead on, and I don’t know how I got put on this to be honest with you, but there’s an education component. So there’s an outreach and extension component, which is sharing the information with those in the industry and then there’s an education component that I’m taking the lead on that’s going to be more about teaching future scientists and students, developing and pulling together the materials that can be used in classrooms and those types of things. So those are the two that I’m taking the lead on. I have a graduate student Kaiyuan Tang, who is really kind of spearheading the research end of the project. Also there’s a resistance section where we’re monitoring, collecting samples from across Pennsylvania, at least for us, and different zones in the United States and we are screening them for resistance to various herbicides. Apparently this has been a huge problem in the south and with the southern golf courses and home lawns in those areas. But in the north, we’ve been screening for a year, we slowed down a little because of COVID, we can’t really travel that much, but we haven’t found any resistance so far to the commonly used herbicides up here. So I think that we’re gonna definitely see it be a geographic thing. Herbicides are more of an issue down in the south and diseases and fungicide seem to be a bigger issue for us, so we’ll have to just keep plugging away and see what else we find.

We’re also on a, we’re trying to look for alternative controls for poa, so instead of thinking about the traditional herbicides, we’re looking at some of these non-traditional, or non-chemical controls. Pelargonic acid and some of these other products that would be considered more safe to burn down the poa annua. I don’t know how successful that’s going to be. We put trials out last week and it seemed to burn all the turf, including the desired turf, so I think a lot of it is going to depend on timing and there’s a lot of work to still be done.

TTZ: So you’ve definitely got a full slate with your portions of this project–

JK: We’ve definitely got enough to keep us busy.

TTZ: How does this work with – does this complement some other work you’re doing outside of the project,

Arkansas Turfgrass Association – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode, we’re talking to John Kaminski, Ph.D., Professor at Penn State. Welcome John, thanks for joining me.

John Kaminski: Thanks for having me.

TTZ: So let’s jump right in to the ResistPoa Project. We know that controlling annual bluegrass can be a challenge for turfgrass managers, and this project is combining efforts of many researchers and participants. So for your part of the project, I understand that there are many objectives. Let’s start off with talking about what objectives you are working on specifically.

JK: Well, we’re involved in, I don’t know how many, it’s a lot, but several aspects of the project. We’re the lead on two of them. The two that we’re the lead on are first seedling emergence patterns, so there’s several of us around the country that are basically monitoring seedling emergence throughout the entire year. So we’re trying to be able to model seedling emergence based on temperature, soil moisture throughout the various zones in the United States in hopes that we can time some of our pre-emergence or post-emergence herbicides can be applied at those specific timings.

So that’s one that we’re taking the lead on. The other one that we’re taking the lead on, and I don’t know how I got put on this to be honest with you, but there’s an education component. So there’s an outreach and extension component, which is sharing the information with those in the industry and then there’s an education component that I’m taking the lead on that’s going to be more about teaching future scientists and students, developing and pulling together the materials that can be used in classrooms and those types of things. So those are the two that I’m taking the lead on. I have a graduate student Kaiyuan Tang, who is really kind of spearheading the research end of the project. Also there’s a resistance section where we’re monitoring, collecting samples from across Pennsylvania, at least for us, and different zones in the United States and we are screening them for resistance to various herbicides. Apparently this has been a huge problem in the south and with the southern golf courses and home lawns in those areas. But in the north, we’ve been screening for a year, we slowed down a little because of COVID, we can’t really travel that much, but we haven’t found any resistance so far to the commonly used herbicides up here. So I think that we’re gonna definitely see it be a geographic thing. Herbicides are more of an issue down in the south and diseases and fungicide seem to be a bigger issue for us, so we’ll have to just keep plugging away and see what else we find.

We’re also on a, we’re trying to look for alternative controls for poa, so instead of thinking about the traditional herbicides, we’re looking at some of these non-traditional, or non-chemical controls. Pelargonic acid and some of these other products that would be considered more safe to burn down the poa annua. I don’t know how successful that’s going to be. We put trials out last week and it seemed to burn all the turf, including the desired turf, so I think a lot of it is going to depend on timing and there’s a lot of work to still be done.

TTZ: So you’ve definitely got a full slate with your portions of this project–

JK: We’ve definitely got enough to keep us busy.

TTZ: How does this work with – does this complement some other work you’re doing outside of the project, specifically focused on annual bluegrass?

JK: It does, actually. My lab has been working on poa going back to the late 90s whe...

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

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode, we’re talking to John Kaminski, Ph.D., Professor at Penn State. Welcome John, thanks for joining me.

John Kaminski: Thanks for having me.

TTZ: So let’s jump right in to the ResistPoa Project. We know that controlling annual bluegrass can be a challenge for turfgrass managers, and this project is combining efforts of many researchers and participants. So for your part of the project, I understand that there are many objectives. Let’s start off with talking about what objectives you are working on specifically.

JK: Well, we’re involved in, I don’t know how many, it’s a lot, but several aspects of the project. We’re the lead on two of them. The two that we’re the lead on are first seedling emergence patterns, so there’s several of us around the country that are basically monitoring seedling emergence throughout the entire year. So we’re trying to be able to model seedling emergence based on temperature, soil moisture throughout the various zones in the United States in hopes that we can time some of our pre-emergence or post-emergence herbicides can be applied at those specific timings.

So that’s one that we’re taking the lead on. The other one that we’re taking the lead on, and I don’t know how I got put on this to be honest with you, but there’s an education component. So there’s an outreach and extension component, which is sharing the information with those in the industry and then there’s an education component that I’m taking the lead on that’s going to be more about teaching future scientists and students, developing and pulling together the materials that can be used in classrooms and those types of things. So those are the two that I’m taking the lead on. I have a graduate student Kaiyuan Tang, who is really kind of spearheading the research end of the project. Also there’s a resistance section where we’re monitoring, collecting samples from across Pennsylvania, at least for us, and different zones in the United States and we are screening them for resistance to various herbicides. Apparently this has been a huge problem in the south and with the southern golf courses and home lawns in those areas. But in the north, we’ve been screening for a year, we slowed down a little because of COVID, we can’t really travel that much, but we haven’t found any resistance so far to the commonly used herbicides up here. So I think that we’re gonna definitely see it be a geographic thing. Herbicides are more of an issue down in the south and diseases and fungicide seem to be a bigger issue for us, so we’ll have to just keep plugging away and see what else we find.

We’re also on a, we’re trying to look for alternative controls for poa, so instead of thinking about the traditional herbicides, we’re looking at some of these non-traditional, or non-chemical controls. Pelargonic acid and some of these other products that would be considered more safe to burn down the poa annua. I don’t know how successful that’s going to be. We put trials out last week and it seemed to burn all the turf, including the desired turf, so I think a lot of it is going to depend on timing and there’s a lot of work to still be done.

TTZ: So you’ve definitely got a full slate with your portions of this project–

JK: We’ve definitely got enough to keep us busy.

TTZ: How does this work with – does this complement some other work you’re doing outside of the project, specifically focused on annual bluegrass?

JK: It does, actually. My lab has been working on poa going back to the late 90s when I was a grad ...

New England Blade – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode, we’re talking to John Kaminski, Ph.D., Professor at Penn State. Welcome John, thanks for joining me. 

John Kaminski: Thanks for having me.

 

TTZ: So let’s jump right in to the ResistPoa Project. We know that controlling annual bluegrass can be a challenge for turfgrass managers, and this project is combining efforts of many researchers and participants. So for your part of the project, I understand that there are many objectives. Let’s start off with talking about what objectives you are working on specifically.

JK: Well, we’re involved in, I don’t know how many, it’s a lot, but several aspects of the project. We’re the lead on two of them. The two that we’re the lead on are first seedling emergence patterns, so there’s several of us around the country that are basically monitoring seedling emergence throughout the entire year. So we’re trying to be able to model seedling emergence based on temperature, soil moisture throughout the various zones in the United States in hopes that we can time some of our pre-emergence or post-emergence herbicides can be applied at those specific timings.

So that’s one that we’re taking the lead on. The other one that we’re taking the lead on, and I don’t know how I got put on this to be honest with you, but there’s an education component. So there’s an outreach and extension component, which is sharing the information with those in the industry and then there’s an education component that I’m taking the lead on that’s going to be more about teaching future scientists and students, developing and pulling together the materials that can be used in classrooms and those types of things. So those are the two that I’m taking the lead on. I have a graduate student Kaiyuan Tang, who is really kind of spearheading the research end of the project. Also there’s a resistance section where we’re monitoring, collecting samples from across Pennsylvania, at least for us, and different zones in the United States and we are screening them for resistance to various herbicides. Apparently this has been a huge problem in the south and with the southern golf courses and home lawns in those areas. But in the north, we’ve been screening for a year, we slowed down a little because of COVID, we can’t really travel that much, but we haven’t found any resistance so far to the commonly used herbicides up here. So I think that we’re gonna definitely see it be a geographic thing. Herbicides are more of an issue down in the south and diseases and fungicide seem to be a bigger issue for us, so we’ll have to just keep plugging away and see what else we find.

We’re also on a, we’re trying to look for alternative controls for poa, so instead of thinking about the traditional herbicides, we’re looking at some of these non-traditional, or non-chemical controls. Pelargonic acid and some of these other products that would be considered more safe to burn down the poa annua. I don’t know how successful that’s going to be. We put trials out last week and it seemed to burn all the turf, including the desired turf, so I think a lot of it is going to depend on timing and there’s a lot of work to still be done.

 

TTZ: So you’ve definitely got a full slate with your portions of this project–

JK: We’ve definitely got enough to keep us busy.

 

TTZ: How does this work with – does this complement some other work you’re doing outside of the project,

MTC Turf News – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapid...

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

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapidly. In fact, this weed, annual bluegrass, is one of the most adaptive plants on the planet.

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

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapidly. In fact, this weed, annual bluegrass, is one of the most adaptive plants on the planet.

Arkansas Turgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapidly. In fact, this weed, annual bluegrass,

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

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapidly. In fact, this weed, annual bluegrass, is one of the most adaptive plants on the planet.

New England Blade – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

TheTurfZone: Welcome to TheTurfZone. In this episode, we continue our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking Shawn Askew, Professor at Virginia Tech, and Clebson Goncalves, post-doctoral associate at Virginia Tech. Welcome, Shawn and Clebson.

Shawn Askew: Thanks for having us.

 

TTZ: Thanks for joining us. So let’s get right into the ResistPoa Project and your part of it. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of a better word, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career, what’s your background and history with poa?

SA: Like you said, as with most turf specialists that do work on weeds, within the first week on the job, I was handling questions related to poa annua, and it’s just so pervasive in the industry. It’s just one of those things and not just if you look at it across the country or regions, whatever. It’s everywhere – it’s global, but temporally, looking back in time. Poa has been a problem in the United States for as long as we have managed turf. I’ve found publications back in the 1920s where poa was a routine, it was as common then as it is today as a weed of turfgrass. If you thing about the characteristics that we would apply to it today, the exact same characteristics were applied back then. They called it “poa” in short. So it was already so old of a problem that they had a shortened name based on the genus in 1921. They observed the seasonal fluctuation in population levels, the seed production, the aesthetics, how it decreses aesthetics, was all commonplace. So this beast has been with us for quite some time and it’s probably not going to soon go away.

 

TTZ: With that long history and knowing that it has been a challenge and has been present for so long, what is the hope with the ResistPoa Project, what new knowledge or what new management techniques are we hoping to gain from this project?

SA: When you look back at what has been done, prior to the ResistPoa Project, it’s mostly chemical herbicides, predominantly synthetic chemical herbicides and those are the strategies that have been evaluated for so many years and that largely have failed for so many years. We have some solutions on the market, but for poa annua, they are often difficult to implement, complicated requirements, need a temperature zone that you have to be in or you get too much turf injury, so for the longest time it’s been difficult to find a true selective herbicide for this weed. Now that may be changing, this is off topic, that may be changing with this new herbicide, methiozolin, PoaCure, which actually is not part of the ResistPoa Project, but ResistPoa was born out of the challenges that we have experienced with conventional herbicides. So what it’s going to do is expand our knowledge a little bit better on those aspects of poa annua control that are now solely dependent on which synthetic herbicide to spray today or tomorrow or next week. We’re looking more at the biology of the weed and trying to exploit its weaknesses. We’re looking at how different types of turf would be more or less competitive with annual bluegrass and we’re also, to speak to the synthetic herbicide issues that we often see, we’re looking at the widespread resistance of poa annua to the various herbicides that we do have. So we have limited options in turf for annual bluegrass control because of the similar physiology between the weed and the turf, but even the few options we have, poa annua develops resistance to them very rapidly. In fact, this weed, annual bluegrass, is one of the most adaptive plants on the planet. It’s one of the only higher plants that can survive in Antarctica. It also is one of the most highly-ranked plants on the herbicide database, the weed science database that we have for herbicide resistance.