The rust spores look like an orange or yellowish powder on the leaf blades and are easily seen with the naked eye. These spores, or pustules, rub off easily. Therefore, your shoes end up orange-colored after a walk through the yard. Rust spores can also be tracked into the house, so take your shoes off outside.
Rust is a turfgrass disease that tends to show up in late summer and fall when weather gets dry. In addition, cool nights with heavy dew create ideal conditions for rust to develop. We had a period of dry weather in August and are experiencing cool nights with heavy dews.
Rust affects Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass and tall fescue; it affects some cultivars more than others. It typically develops on turf areas that are growing slowly due to depleted nitrogen in the soil.
It’s very typical in the fall because the last time that the lawn is usually fertilized is in the spring and nitrogen is depleted by now.
The good news is that it’s not a major issue other than ruining shoes. It doesn’t kill lawns.
I mentioned a fall fertilizer application for the lawn last week; this will help. In addition, when weather conditions change rust will disappear.
I never use fungicides for rust in the lawn and it’s not really recommended for home lawns. It can be very costly. Good cultural practices and patience are the best recommendations.
Many homeowners are just now seeing bagworms and the damage they cause on their evergreens and other trees and shrubs. At this point in time, it’s too late to do anything other than removing the bags by hand.
Bagworms look like little pine cones at this point in the growing season. They have pretty much finished development and feeding and have tied off for the winter.
This means that the mature larvae loop strands of silk around a branch or object (we have one tied off on a wire sculpture in the garden) and hunkers down for the winter.
After closing the top of the bag, the larvae changes into the pupal stage. Mating occurs in September and early October followed by massive egg laying for next year’s crop.
Pesticides are not effective at this time. Therefore, your best option is to decrease the population potential for next year by hand-picking the bags and destroying them.
Two other pest problems that sometimes get confused with bagworm are the Eastern tent caterpillar and the fall webworm. These two are caterpillars that create nests out of silk on deciduous trees. People sometimes refer to these as bagworms.
Eastern tent caterpillar hatches in the early spring and creates a nest in the crotches of the branches. They go out of the nest during the day and consume the foliage.
Fall webworms, despite their name, also hatch in early summer; they sometimes have two generations per year. They build their nests around the leaves at the ends of the branches and feed under the protection of the nest.
The best control for these two pests is to remove them by hand (use a stick wrapped with a cloth and knock them in a bucket of soapy water) or to prune the tips of the branches in the case of fall webworm.
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