Issue no. 11 of the Home, Yard & Garden Newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE:

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Last Weekly Issue

This is the last weekly issue of the Home, Yard, and Garden Pest Newsletter for this year. It will be published every other week through July, August, and September.

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Billbugs

We have had reports of bluegrass billbug injury in northern Illinois turf. Damage is appearing as two-to three inch roughly circular areas of browning turf. Tugging on the damaged turf causes it to break loose easily, revealing chewed, frayed ends at the base of the stems. Close examination will find holes at the stem bases where the young billbugs emerged after tunneling in the stems.

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Masked Chafers

Masked chafer adults have been numerous throughout Illinois. They are one-half inch long, tan, stocky beetles with a black band across the head, giving them the name of masked chafers. They are also called June bugs. Two species occur throughout Illinois, the southern and northern masked chafers.

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White Grubs

We are set up to have large numbers of white grubs in turf this year. Adult beetles of Japanese beetle and the two masked chafer species are numerous throughout most of the state. Corresponding hot, dry weather will concentrate egg-laying in irrigated turf, resulting in high numbers of white grubs.

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Cedar-Apple Rust

Cedar rust comes in three different forms and can infect apple, hawthorn, and quince trees wherever cedars exist across the country. Cedar rust of apple is probably the most important of all apple rusts in the eastern United States. If a susceptible cultivar is grown, it will cause severe (almost total!) defoliation and a huge loss in crop quantity and fruit quality.

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Iron Chlorosis

Are the leaves on your tree a little more yellow than you remember from previous years? They may be chlorotic, a condition in which leaves turn yellow as a result of destruction of chlorophyll or lack of chlorophyll production. In most cases, chlorosis is the result of a nutrient deficiency caused either by a lack of available nutrients or the inability of the plant to uptake the nutrients.

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