It’s the time of year to begin one of the most complicated puzzles in turf management: annual bluegrass weevil treatments.
Dealing with annual bluegrass weevil can be tricky, especially when winter shakes out in unpredictable waves into spring. Ideally, only a few insecticide applications would be necessary. But with repeated warmth and chills, it’s tough to outmaneuver the bugs and beat those egg-laying periods.
One tool available to superintendents is DuPont Professional Products’ Weevil Trak 2011 website, where supers can get a digest of weevil activity and information from other local clubs. The researchers gather information from 52 sites throughout the northeast and use those statistics to determine what kind of weevil activity is happening in the season.
“Last year we had about 650 superintendents registered with us,” says Chuck Wilcox, turf and ornamental product development manager at DuPont. “It’s pretty widely accepted as a tool to use to combat the insect. We keep our finger on the pulse of what’s happening with them.”
The net is expanding, as well, bringing in more site locations this year and references from last year’s data. The gathered information helps superintendents see what stages other local courses are in, which can shed light on what might be going on closer to home, using temperature and weekly turf samples to monitor for the bugs. Weevil Trak lists activity by stages, using DuPont’s recommended insecticide applications for each stage.
“There’s a lot of different information coming in from more than 50 places in New England,” says Pat Vittum of the University of Massachusetts, researcher for the program. “You can watch the colors change on the map in spring as it happens.
Once gathered, the information can found on the website, and can also be sent out in e-mail alerts.
“I don’t think there’s a more difficult insect to track,” says Wilcox. “The one thing you don’t want to do is be too early with this insect. Timing is everything with weevils.”
Find Weevil Trak 2011 here.