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Pat O’Brien is the director of the Southeast region of the USGA Green Section. He gives us his view of what weed pressures superintendents will see this year.
Here’s the deal for the Southeast region: We’ve had extreme cold weather this year for January and February. The biggest concern we’ve got is for our Bermudagrass fairways and roughs and tees – did they sustain any winter damage? That’s the big question. You then have to be more restrictive with what you can apply chemical-wise for your spring pre-emergent herbicide. In the event that there’s any damage and you either need to sod or sprig or whatever to get the plant material in there. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has gone through this scenario this year, but if you have any concerns, this is the year you need to use something like Ronstar if you haven’t been doing it.
We’ve got a lot of great products, but the thing is with pre-emerge products, you’re going to have issues if there’s any type of Bermudagrass damage. But the thing is you have to make a decision, how you feel about your grass and everything. If you put a pre-emerge out, certainly in the next two to three weeks everyone will be done with that. If you don’t put one down, you’ve got to get into the post-emergent business and that’s tougher.
If you end up having damage and you have something that limits you with your options for recovery, you’ll have problems. Dealing with that winter injury and your base plant is pretty critical right now, and we don’t know where we stand with it yet because it’s still cold enough that the grass isn’t greened up yet. It only takes one night to damage it.
There’s multiple options for post-emergents, but the problem is that some of them take multiple treatments, and no one wants to get into that game. We’ve got a potential threat of damage to our warm-season grasses, and if you’re thinking you’re going to be in that category, you should think wisely about if you’re going to use a pre-emergent. If you need to do recovery, you’re going to need to keep as many options open as possible. Your selection is critical.