Ken Benoit

April 17, 2020 by NYS BMP ·

The annual bluegrass weevil (ABW), Listronotus maculicollis, can have two to three generations per year and cause significant damage to many golf courses in New York.  But monitoring and managing ABW in an economically and environmentally sustainable way can be difficult. However, by using proper scouting methods along with a well-informed decision-making process, you can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of ABW management at your facility.

ABW adults overwinter in leaf litter, tall grasses, and other areas with dense organic matter that provides a buffered environment from harsh winter conditions.  On a typical golf course, overwintering habitats include roughs, grassy native areas, forest edges, and tree and shrub lines. In spring — as early as March in upstate New York — ABW adults emerge from their overwintering areas and move toward golf turf playing areas to begin reproduction. This is when the ABW management season begins.

During the spring, ABW adults can be controlled before they lay eggs. Scouting for adult ABW is important for decision-making, with the primary goals for adult scouting being to determine the following:

• Timing and location of ABW emerging from overwintering sites — when and where on each course. Recording these location helps to narrow scouting efforts later in the season.
• Pattern of ABW adult movement following emergence toward short-mown turf.
• Timing of peak activity of ABW adults, meaning the point at which the majority of ABW adults are found at or within the playing surface (fairway, tee, green) edge.

Adult scouting should begin in March and continue weekly until peak activity is observed at the nearest playing surface and noted. This stage generally coincides with the phenological stage of half green/ half gold on forsythia and occurs at roughly 110 – 120 growing degree days (GDD – base 50 beginning March 1). This will also highlight areas for larval monitoring later in the season.

To learn more about scouting and ABW management, see our new video “Scouting & Decision Making for Annual Bluegrass Weevil” featuring the work of Dr. Kyle Wickings, Cornell University, and funded by a Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Fund grant. This video is a companion to our ABW publication Diagnosis and Decision Making for Sustainable Annual Bluegrass Weevil Management.

January 15, 2020 by NYS BMP ·

Do you have a stream on your golf course property? Interested in a way to measure water quality without spending a lot on costly testing, learn a thing or two and have some fun at the same time?  One method is to examine what is living in it – in particular the benthic macroinvertebrates. These insects live underwater in our streams and rivers, lack a backbone, and can be seen by the naked eye.

The NYSDEC program called WAVE (Water Assessments by Volunteer Evaluators) is a project where volunteers collect, or sample “stream bugs” to assess water quality in wadeable streams throughout New York State.  These organisms are the “canaries in the coal mine” that can be used to assess stream health. I remember attending my first sampling day and found it to be extremely fascinating. Finding out what “bugs” are actually living in our streams was a real eye-opener. Like a lot of things in our lives, it’s not difficult to get a basic understanding of how to find and identify benthic macroinvertebrates, though being an expert could take a lifetime of study.

The good news is that help is available to use this method to sample and assess water quality. The WAVE program holds training classes, both in person and on-line. My training was sponsored by the Rockland County Soil & Water Conservation District. Alternatively, volunteers may already be in your area that you can request assistance from for stream sampling at your facility, if you have an appropriate sampling site. To qualify as an official sampling site, certain stream characteristics must be present. For example, your stream must have an active riffle habitat (a place where water flows over rocks). On the other hand, if your stream is near the outfall of a pond it may not qualify.

Using this method, stream invertebrates are collected and identified. This information is assessed with respect to diversity (how many different species are present) and sensitivity to pollution. For example, some species are sensitive to stream water quality conditions – meaning they require high dissolved oxygen levels, or clear, nonturbid waters, or they may be predators that require an ample source of prey. Some species are moderately sensitive to stream water quality conditions, meaning they can survive in conditions that sensitive species may not, though they still need a supportive aquatic environment to survive. And last, some species are pollution tolerant, meaning they can survive in poor water quality such as waters with low levels of dissolved oxygen, turbid waters or nutrient-enriched waters.

Once your sample is analyzed it will be recorded as “possibly impaired”, “not impaired”, or “No conclusion”.   The sites that are “possibly impaired” are flagged for further professional level study by the NYS DEC and added to their RIBS Program. A stream that has a poor water quality score over time can qualify them to be added to the Priority Waterbodies Inventory, which makes the site eligible for grant funding for restoration.  More information on the WAVE program and links to on-line training, sampling guides and forms, etc. can be found the WAVE web page on NYSDEC’s website.

You may be surprised where sampling is already being conducted. It may be a location close to your golf course, in which case that data may be useful to use as you review your water quality practices and management efforts.

January 13, 2020 by NYS BMP ·

For many reasons, management of annual bluegrass weevils (ABW) presents incredible challenges to golf course superintendents in New York State. These reasons include:

1) The small size (about 1/8 inch in length) and cryptic nature of ABW adults make monitoring difficult.

2) As the life stages progress and ABW transitions through the egg and larval stages, observing ABW becomes increasingly difficult because most stages occur within the turfgrass stem. Complicating things further, as larvae mature they emerge from the turf crown into the surrounding soil and proceed to feed on the crown and roots of the plant. Following the last larval development stage, larvae pupate below ground and the next adult generation emerges. This generation of ABW is more widely distributed on the golf course, and thus more difficult to find and diagnose than the previous generation.

3) ABW development is highly asynchronous, meaning that the life stages of different individuals overlap, resulting in the presence of more than one life stage at a single time.

Collectively, these factors make ABW a difficult insect to monitor and manage in an economically and environmentally sustainable way. However, by using proper scouting methods along with a well-informed decision-making process, the effectiveness and efficiency of ABW management can be improved at your facility. Traditionally, ABW management has focused primarily on scouting for and treating adults. However, to enhance control and to manage insecticide resistance in ABW, managers are encouraged to broaden their monitoring and management efforts to include ABW larvae in addition to adults.

The new NYS BMP and Cornell University joint publication Diagnosis and Decision Making for Sustainable Annual Bluegrass Weevil Management provides the information superintendents need to establish a successful ABW monitoring and management program for both adult and larvae ABW.

Related content on the NYS BMP blog:

• Case Studyon IPM Methods to Control ABW at Bethpage Black Course
• Detailed instructionson two different designs for easily creating a vacuum basket for monitoring ABW.