Late Season Control of Mole Crickets on High Maintenance Turf in Texas, 1995

The study was located on a golf course tee and green approach at the Austin Country Club, Austin, TX. The turf area was not uniformly infested with mole crickets, so a 2.5 x 2.5 m square of PVC pipe was individually placed on the highest infested areas and each plot was outlined with turf marking paint. Pre-treatment tunneling activity was determined by placing a 1 m2 PVC (subdivided into 25 grids) frame in the center of each plot and accessing the percent of grids with active tunneling activity (activity within a grid represented 4% damage). Plots were blocked according to infestation level in a RCB design with 5 replications. Plots were treated on 14 Aug, 1995. Treatments were applied with 2-gal pressurized sprayers and washed in with ca. 4 gal of water per plot. The measure of control was assessed by evaluating new tunneling activity the following two days after treatments. All tunneling activity was washed down with irrigation each evening so assays taken early the following morning would only reflect new tunneling that had occurred the previous night.