Become a Master Gardener Volunteer!!

Onslow County Master Gardener Volunteer Class Starts June 8

Rebecca researches and answers questions for a client.

The Onslow County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension is offering a Master Gardener Volunteer class starting June 8.  The Master Gardener Volunteer Program is a joint endeavor of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service and volunteers who wish to learn how to be better gardeners and help other gardeners by sharing their knowledge.  The program is designed to recruit and train volunteers to help meet the educational needs of the citizens of Onslow County.

Class participants learn about a wide variety of gardening subjects including vegetables, fruits, lawn grasses, shrubs, flowers and trees.  The training focuses on developing diagnostic skills for insects and diseases of plants.  Classes are also given on landscaping for water quality, soils, composting, propagation, wildlife control and much, much more!

Teri harvests lettuce at the Tarawa Terrace Community Garden. 

Master Gardeners receive 40 hours of training and after graduation they provide 40 hours of volunteer work in the community.  Master Gardeners are involved in a range of community projects including: answering homeowner inquires at the Extension Office and Farmer’s Market, mailing out information bulletins to homeowners, conducting plant clinics, working with school children on special horticultural projects, talking to garden clubs, working on community beautification projects and developing the new Discovery Gardens of Onslow.

The 2015 Master Gardener course will begin June 8 and run through August 10.  Classes will usually be taught Monday and Wednesday mornings from 9:00 am until noon with the occasional field trip being held outside normal class hours.  Cost for the course is $100, which includes a comprehensive Master Gardener Manual.

If you are interested in the 2015 course, please call the North Carolina Cooperative Extension - Onslow County Center at (910) 455-5873, and request an application.  Space in the class is limited.

Tom works in the Discovery Gardens.

Why You Should Read the Label

Please Read the Label!

Have you ever hesitated to use a pesticide because you were not sure how to mix it, where or when it should be applied, or what threat it posed to bees, wildlife, pets or people? All of this, along with other essential information, is listed on every pesticide label. Reading the label before you buy or use a pesticide is important for all types of pesticides, including organic products. It will help you decide which product is right for your pest problem, how to correctly apply it, and what risks are involved.     

First, Know Your Pest

There are many different pesticides available for home gardeners. These include herbicides to kill weeds, insecticides to kill pest insects, and fungicides to control plant diseases. Some contain synthetic chemicals while others are made from natural materials such as minerals, bacteria, or plant derived chemicals.

Whether you are dealing with a weed, insect, or plant disease, the first step to using any of these products effectively is to make sure you have the problem correctly identified.

Pesticide labels list which pests they can be used to treat. Using a pesticide on a problem it will not control wastes your time, money, and can harm beneficial insects, water quality, and wildlife. If you are unsure which pest you are dealing with contact your local Cooperative Extension office for help.

The ingredient in a pesticide that harms a pest is known as the product’s active ingredient. Just as on medicine bottles, pesticides must list their active ingredients on the label. These can usually be found on the front of the packaging. Knowing what active ingredient is in a pesticide allows you to compare one product to another. It also allows you to look up active ingredients on websites such the Extension Toxicology Network, extoxnet.orst.edu, to find out more about their potential effects on people and the environment.

When and How to Apply

Not sure what type of plants or under what conditions you can use a pesticide? Check the label. For example, some pesticides should not be applied to edible crops while others should not be used on plants in containers or those that are drought stressed. Most pesticides should not be applied during hot weather, when temperatures exceed 90 degrees, or when rain is expected in the next 24 hours. Some herbicides should not be spread on certain soil types or over the rooting area of trees and shrubs. For example, herbicides containing atrazine should not be applied to lawns if the soil pH is over 7.0. No pesticide should be sprayed or spread near any body of water or stormwater drain unless it is specifically labeled for aquatic use.

When pesticides fail to work it is usually because they were not mixed or applied correctly or the wrong product was used because the pest was not accurately identified. Directions for mixing and applying pesticides are included on the label. These directions will tell you how much to mix, where and how to apply them to the plant, how many days must pass between applications and if there are limits on the number of time a product can be used in a year. 

People, Pets, and Wildlife

Other essential information contained on a pesticide’s label include first aid instructions, protective clothing and equipment you should wear when mixing and applying, and hazards to wildlife, including bees. Many insecticide labels include statements about their toxicity to bees, which is often high. To reduce the risk of harming bees and other beneficial insects, do not spray plants when bees are active and avoid spraying open flowers. Natural products are often less toxic to bees because they break down fast, reducing the amount of time bees are exposed.

For pesticides that can be sprayed on edible plants, make sure to check how long you have to wait after spraying before you can harvest. This time is known as the post harvest interval (PHI) and can range from a day to weeks or months. The label will also tell you how long you have to wait before people or pets can enter the treated area. This is usually after all sprays have dried completely but additional restrictions exist for some products.

Large Patch

We’ve seen a lot of large patch this spring. These giant patches of brown grass in bermuda, centipede, St. Augustine, and zoysia are most obvious in spring. This disease is large patch, caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani, and if you’ve ever had an outbreak of this disease, you now know why the disease was coined large patch. Once the fungus is established, the rings grow larger during favorable conditions.

What you may not know however, is what your control options are this time of year. You shouldn’t worry too much if you have this disease on bermudagrass. Bermudagrass tends to grow out of the damage once the temperatures are consistently warmer and the daylight longer.

Damage tends to be most severe on centipedegrass and recovery may take all summer in extreme cases. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to make for a magical recovery. We rarely recommend fungicides for large patch in the spring of the year, fungicide applications are best when they are applied preventatively in the fall. Also, remember that recovery will be even slower and tougher if you’ve applied a DNA type of herbicide as your pre-emerge for summer weeds. DNA herbicides include preemergents like pendimethalin, prodiamine, oryzalin, trifluralin, benefin and dithiopyr. Check the active ingredients on your herbicide label.

In most cases, the best thing is to stay the course with management practices that will encourage each type of grass to do well. In severe cases, treating damaged areas like a new establishment with light and frequent fertilizer and water inputs may help encourage faster lateral spread. This doesn’t mean you should apply more fertilizer, just smaller doses more often. Applying too much fertilizer will make the disease worse this fall!

Finally, be sure to map the affected areas now while they are clearly visible. You will save yourself some money this fall by spot treating these areas instead of having to make a whole property application, since the disease tends to reappear in the same areas. If you irrigate your lawn during the summer, plan to gradually cut the irrigation back and do not irrigate after the beginning of August to reduce the wetness needed for disease development in the fall.


For more information go to: http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/Diseases/Large_Patch.aspx