While mowing this weekend, I noticed thousands of small crickets, ants, and other assorted nuisance pests just waiting to get into the house. A foundation treatment can at least greatly reduce the number of these insects finding their way into your home. A foundation treatment entails spraying the foundation of the house and the adjacent foot or two of soil with permethrin or bifenthrin insecticide. This treatment creates a chemical barrier that the insects crawl through when trying to enter your home. If they don't die on the outside, they are very short lived on the inside. You can expect the chemical treatment to last for 3-4 weeks. Both of these chemicals are used on a wide range of plants, so should present no problems to flowers, shrubs, or turf.

Once crickets are on the inside, there are few effective options, and none that will do a good job over a period of time. These options include: spraying individual insects or small areas with an aerosol products containing pyrethrins, spraying baseboard areas with an aerosol containing permethrin, or a fly swatter.

Bacterial leaf scorch (BLS) is an infectious plant disease caused by a bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa. The pathogen is systemic, living in the xylem. The most frequent U.S. hosts include elm, oak, sycamore, mulberry, sweetgum, sugar maple, and red maple. In Illinois, we have identified the problem on oak. At the U of I Plant Clinic, it has been confirmed it on pin, red, shingle, bur, and white oaks. Kentucky reports BLS on pin, red, scarlet, bur, white, willow, and shingle oaks; silver, sugar, and red maples; sweetgum, sycamore, planetree, hackberry, American elm, and red mulberry. Look for scorch symptoms that occur in early summer to midsummer, intensifying in late summer. The scorched leaf edges or tissue between veins may be bordered by a yellow or reddish brown color, but not in all cases. Symptoms occur first on one branch or section of branches and slowly spread in the tree from year to year. It is one of those situations that you hope will be better but the situation gets worse. On local pin oaks, it seems the bottom branches die each year.

There is no cure. Some have tried injections with oxytetracycline, but none have shown more than disease suppression with this antibiotic. This suppression has been more common in the southern states rather than the Midwest. Because the pathogen is in the xylem, cleaning pruning tools before moving to another tree is important to reduce spread of the disease. Xylem-feeding leafhoppers and spittlebugs are thought to spread the bacterium in landscape trees. It can also be transmitted between trees through root grafts.

Logan County Extension Office

Logan County Extension Office

The time of year has arrived to put that final push on to prepare your lawn for the upcoming winter months. What you do now will have a big impact on how your lawn will look next spring.

Keep mowing when the grass or weeds dictate mowing. The rule of thumb is to remove no more than a third of the leaf blade at any one time. This means that if your desired mowing height is 2 inches, you should be mowing when the grass gets 3 inches tall. With the recent dry, hot weather mowing frequency has slowed down greatly.

I have had some grub samples brought into the office this week. This means that the grubs are active. Grub problems are normally found first along walks, driveways, or patios. The current list of products includes imidacloprid and trichlorfon as the chemical active ingredients. Sevin may also be used, but it is specific for Japanese beetle grubs. Sevin also will have an effect on earthworms, which is good and bad. It is good if you have mole problems, and bad if you don't. If label directions are followed, these should provide adequate control of grubs. The insecticide must get to where the grubs are, so make sure to water the liquid formulations in as soon as they are applied.

The other brown grass problem is either disease or heat stress on chiefly Kentucky bluegrass lawns. This tends to be in open sun, where there are traffic areas, where water may have stood with heavy rains, and other similar stress areas. In any case, these areas appear dead. They may have just had the top portions die back and further growth may occur from the root or crown areas when some cooler temperatures return. If diseases were present, it won't do any good to spray them. If areas don't start greening up by September 10, see the section below on seeding. Questions continue on rust in lawns, and with any disease problem, it is not recommended to treat with fungicides in home lawn situations. Rust will go away when the weather conditions change.

Seeding of grass should be accomplished by September 10. This is a tried and true date, but the end of the world won't come about if you are a week later. The goal is to give the seed

enough time to germinate and become established before bad weather arrives. Seed at the rate of 4 pounds of seed per 1000 square feet on bare spots, or half that rate on overseedings.

If you have a compacted yard, or have a deep thatch layer, now is also an ideal time to dethatch or aerate. Thatch layers should not be over 1/2 inch deep for optimum growing conditions. When aerating, make sure you use a core type aerator.

Fall fertilization is also a good practice. If you haven't fertilized in the last month, consider applying a fertilizer treatment now. Use about 8 pounds of 13?13?13 fertilizer per

1000 square feet of lawn. Try to avoid the high nitrogen fertilizers this late in the year. It's hard enough to keep up with the mowing as it is, and nitrogen promotes top growth. The even analysis fertilizers will also promote root growth, which is what we want going into the late fall and winter.

Crabgrass and other annuals grass weeds can be seen about everywhere. They will die with the first frost, so treatment is not available or recommended in the fall. Make a note of where these grasses are, and an overseeding to thicken up the grasses you want there may help crowd out the annuals.

Last, but not least, is broadleaf weed control. Fall is a particularly good time to treat problem perrenial weeds since they are sending food down to the roots to overwinter. A spray

about the 3rd or 4th week of September (making sure to use the appropriate product) can do a world of good on the perennial weeds. Remember to be very careful with herbicides around perennial plants since they are also getting ready to overwinter.

If you're one that usually suffers from the fall allergy season, you know the symptoms all to well. Many people blame goldenrod as the culprit, when it is mostly ragweed problems. In our area, we have two types of ragweed. The most noticeable is giant ragweed. Giant ragweed, also called horseweed, can grow well over 10 feet tall. It is very noticeable as one of the few weeds that grows taller than our Illinois corn. The other type of ragweed is common ragweed. It is generally less than six feet tall, and not nearly as noticeable.

Ragweeds tend to bloom in late summer. The period can range from mid-August to mid-September. They put out a lot of pollen when they bloom. The amount of pollen is one problem, but the shape of the pollen is the other. The shape of the pollen is more jagged and sharp along the edges, making it more of an irritant than other types of pollen.

Add in the usual ragweed problems, alternating wet and dry conditions, and early leaf drop, and we have the recipe for an allergy sufferer's nightmare. There are also several leaf molds that are at work, and that compounds the allergy problem.

What can you do? One, try to eliminate ragweed in your particular area. Two, avoid the mid to late morning period in the great outdoors. This is when more pollen is released. Three, you can stay indoors (or office or car) with air conditioning. And, if your problems are particularly troublesome, talk to your doctor. There are prescriptions and over-the-counter products to help alleviate at least some of the symptoms.

This has probably been one of the worst years in history. This year's season started almost a month earlier than normal, and even eclipses the past two years. So take some comfort in the fact that next year will probably be better. I've said that the last two years in a row, but there is always hope!

The squash bug ranks as one of the lowest rated creatures on earth. Anyone who has grown squash, pumpkins, melons, or related crops has met it. Adult squash bugs are flattened in appearance and approximately ½ to ¾ inch long. Gray to black in color, adults are winged with orange and brown stripes visible on the edges of the abdomen. Eggs are 1/16 inch long, yellowish-brown to brick red in color. Upon hatching, nymphs are wingless, pale green to white with red legs, heads, and antennae. As nymphs mature, they become more gray in color with black legs.

Adults overwinter in plant debris around fields or wooded areas. Young nymphs present in late fall when temperatures begin to decrease will freeze and die off. In the spring, adults emerge as temperatures warm. At this time they fly in search of fields and begin mating. Females lay eggs individually in clusters of 7 to 20 on the undersides of leaves; each cluster is laid in a "V-shaped" pattern formed by two leaf veins. Eggs laying usually begins in mid-June and continues into summer. Eggs hatch in 1 to 2 weeks in late June and early July. Young nymphs feed in groups on the undersides of leaves. Squash bugs have five nymph stages in our area, and reach maturity in 5 to 6 weeks. Adults emerge in late summer and continue feeding until the first frost.

Damage to host plants is caused by both adults and nymphs. Young nymphs feed in groups near where they hatched, while older nymphs feed on the entire plant. Squash bugs suck nutrients from the leaves, disrupting the flow of water and nutrients. As they feed small, yellow specks develop on the leaves and later turn brown. Severe feeding may cause entire leaves to turn brown and die. Feeding by the squash bug also causes plants to wilt. Vines wilt from the point of feeding to the end of the vine. Leaves turn brown, then black, and eventually die. Wilt symptoms resemble symptoms of Bacterial wilt, a disease of cucurbits. However, if squash bug populations are controlled soon enough, wilted plants should recover. Plants infected with Bacterial wilt would continue to wilt and die. Both nymphs and adults also feed on the fruit. Severe damage may cause the fruit to be unmarketable.

Control of squash bugs is difficult. One way is to remove the eggs from the leaves. Of course, several have hatched out already. Sprays of pyrethroids, such as bifenthrin are effective against at least the younger nymph stages. The organic control has been sabadilla dust, but beware. Sabadilla dust is one of the most toxic things you can handle.

Logan County Extension Office

As we enter mid-August, we usually don't think of fall. At least not quite yet. One reason we call fall defoliators exactly that is that the growing season is late in the second half. Some of the names of the defoliators also have fall in their name.

Let's begin by listing some of the culprits. Fall webworms, Eastern tent caterpillars, Tussock moth larvae, Walnut caterpillars, Cecropia moth larvae, and a host of others are all considered fall defoliators. What is defoliation? It is simply removing the leaves from a plant. This group of insects accomplishes the feat by eating leaves.

What does fall defoliation do to a tree or shrub? It does two things. First is removes the leaf tissue so that less food is made for the plant. Second, the insects, their webs, or their damage can be unsightly. In the end, damage happening to a tree or shrub in mid-August is usually cosmetic. Unless you have new transplants or plants that aren't healthy to begin with.

Most fall defoliators come to us as the larval stage (read caterpillar) of a moth. When we talk about controls of the larvae, the fact that they are larvae of moths or butterflies makes them susceptible to the use of B.t. products such as Thuricide. Other control options include the standbys such as Sevin, diazinon, Othene, malathion, and others.

The way that insects live also dictates some of the control do's and don'ts. Fall webworms live inside a "web" all the time. They actually expand the webbing as they need to have more leaves to eat. They are usually worst on fruit and nut trees. You can even clip the nest (and the branch it is around) off the tree and burn it. I guess this tells you that defoliation caused by the insect isn't that great of a threat to the tree or you wouldn't cut the branch area off. If you want to spray fall webworms, you need to get the spray through the web. This may be a little harder than you think. If you don't have enough pressure, the spray just runs off the webbing.

In the case of Eastern tent caterpillars, they hatch out of a common nest. They then leave the nest to feed, but generally return in the evening to congregate in the area of the nest. They are not covered by webbing, and the time they are congregated is a great time to spray since they are usually in one area on the trunk or main branches of trees.

Of the other fall defoliators mentioned, the giant Cecropia moth larvae are quite a sight. If you are able to see one. They are very large caterpillars that can eat tremendous amounts of leaves in a hurry. There are other related moth larvae such as Prometheus moths, but they are all in the giant silk moth family and the moths usually have wing spans of at least four inches.

In summary, control of fall defoliators isn't usually justified from the plant's standpoint. Forested areas have heavy pressure from this group in insects every year, and the trees are still thriving. The exception is newly transplanted or struggling plants. If appearances are important, consider a control spray.

With the excessive heat, the cycle of these insects will be sped along. We can probably figure two to three weeks early for many of them this year.

With the numbers of aphids increasing in gardens, on trees, and in fields, that brings us to a couple of predators that we are familiar with. One is the Asian lady beetle, and the other is the syrphid fly. Both of these increase populations greatly when their food source, in this case aphids, increases.

We are all familiar with the Asian lady beetle. It is actually a beneficial insect since it eats aphids. It is also a nuisance pest when it gets all over the side of your house, or flies around your light over the kitchen table. The vacuum cleaner is the best control in the house, and think twice about treating them outside since they are helping you keep from having black, sticky lawn furniture.

Syrphid fly is a generic name given to an entire group of flies. There are some differences in appearance and color, but the yellow and black color is the major one in our area. The other names for syrphid flies are hover flies or flower flies. They tend to hover around your arms and face when you have been perspiring, and land to lap up the sweat. They are also commonly found on flowers, hence the flower fly name, and do a good job of pollinating.

Syrphid flies are actually beneficial insects. They help pollinate, larvae feed on dead organic matter, and the larvae are predators of aphids. They cannot sting, but their mouthparts can usually be felt when lapping up sweat from sensitive areas. You may feel a slight pinch.

Sticky Mess

People are beginning to complain about leaking sap coming from trees. Actually this has been going on for a week or so. What happens is a fine mist of sap coats things beneath a tree. This is actually called "honeydew," which is a secretion of sucking insects such as aphids. What makes matters worse is a fungus begins growing in the honeydew, making it turn black.

There are two ways to deal with the problem. The first way is to spray the entire tree with a product, such as malathion, to kill the insects. The second way is to move anything portable from under the tree. If you opt for the first option, you need to make sure you can spray the entire tree. The kind of weather predicted will increase aphid numbers at a very great rate.

Logan County Extension Office