Briefly . . .

Approval for Loan is Not License to Spend    

Dutch Elm Disease Still Killing Kansas Trees

Weather Wonders: Late Summer Can Bring Talk of Bermuda High 

Rhizome-Producing Tall Fescues No Silver Bullet for Kansas Lawns

Approval for Loan is Not License to Spend

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Would-be home buyers who are approved for a loan can often benefit from restraint, a Kansas State University financial management specialist said.

A prospective lender may be looking at the best-case scenario, with a two-income household maintaining or improving their financial outlook, said Carol Young, K-State Research and Extension financial management specialist.

With job losses, layoffs and furloughs, spending less, within the low- to middle-range of the approved amount, should free-up money for extras, such as appliances needed to complete the kitchen or do the wash, without adding extra stress,” she said.

“Buying more house than you need typically adds expense,” said Young, who listed costs to heat, cool and furnish unneeded space and a heftier tax bill.

Buying at the top of your price range also can put a damper on savings for other priorities, including an emergency fund to sustain the family in the event of change in employment status, illness or injury, Young said.

More information on managing money successfully is available at county and district K-State Research and Extension offices and on Extension Web sites: www.ksre.ksu.edu and www.ksre.ksu.edu/financialmanagement/.

Dutch Elm Disease Still Killing Kansas Trees

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Several samples tested positive for Dutch elm disease this summer at Kansas State University’s Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab.

Carried by two species of elm bark beetle, the disease first entered Kansas in 1957 and soon cut a wide, deadly swath through the state’s American, rock, slippery and cedar elms. Even so, it finds additional elms to kill every year, said Megan Kennelly, plant pathologist with K-State Research and Extension.

“Fortunately, we know more about DED now and can prevent it through sanitation and pruning. But, early action is vital,” Kennelly said. “For people who want to try them, systemic fungicide injections are available now, too. A trained arborist has to administer the injections every three years. The cost each time can be several hundred dollars for the fungicide – plus labor – so it tends to be used as a preventive only for important landscape trees.”

Still, pruning alone can save trees in the first stages of a beetle-spread infection, she said. Typically, the first symptoms are yellowish, wilted leaves on branches high in the tree crown.

“DED causes brownish-red streaking in the sapwood, too. You check for that by peeling back the bark on a wilted branch. If you find it, then you cut off the branch 10 feet below the lowest sign of streaking,” she said. “Naturally, you also disinfect your tools between cuts and monitor the tree for further wilting.”

Unfortunately, elm roots tend to fuse together if trees are within 50 feet of each other, Kennelly said. And, a “shared” root system can be an even quicker route for the spread of Dutch elm -- which is why the disease was so devastating at first in urban areas. Closing that kind of access requires digging a trench 24 inches deep to sever the fused roots halfway between an infected elm and its neighbors. Then the removed soil can go back into the trench.

If wilt occurs in more than 25 percent of a tree’s crown, however, the disease is basically unstoppable, she warned. And, whether dying or dead, infected elms should be buried, chipped or burned as soon as possible – and not stored as firewood. They’re a reservoir for the disease fungus and an egg-laying site for the bark beetles.

Homeowners wanting specific help in identifying Dutch elm disease can collect several recently wilted branches, one-half to 2 inches in diameter. (Dead branches won’t work.) They can submit this sample to their nearest county or district Extension office for forwarding to K-State’s diagnostic lab. 

More information about Dutch elm disease is available on the Web under “Common Plant Problems in Kansas” at http://www.hfrr.ksu.edu/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=586.

Weather Wonders:  Late Summer Can Bring Talk of Bermuda High

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- August typically brings hot weather to the central High Plains, which may have weather forecasters mentioning a phenomenon called the Bermuda High.

“When people talk about a Bermuda High, they are talking about a semi-permanent area of high pressure in the North Atlantic Ocean,” said Mary Knapp, who serves as the state climatologist for Kansas. “It shifts east or west depending on the season and the central pressure. As this high pressure system shifts west during the late summer, it funnels hot, humid tropical air over the United States.”

The further west the high pressure shifts, the further west the flow of tropical air is, said Knapp, who heads the Kansas Weather Data Library based in Kansas State University Research and Extension. Combined with a shift in the jet stream to northern Canada, this leads to a stagnant weather pattern win which one hot, humid day often follows another.

Information about Kansas weather is available on the Weather Data Library Web site: http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/wdl/. “Weather Wonders” audio reports are available on the K-State Research and Extension/Kansas Radio Network site at http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/radio/. 

Rhizome-Producing Tall Fescues No Silver Bullet for Kansas Lawns

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Ironically, the central High Plains are the natural grasslands -- the Pampas -- of North America. Yet, growing a high-quality lawn there can seem close to impossible.

The ideal lawn turf for central U.S. weather extremes has yet to be found. But, it probably should mix some qualities of both tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass – the No. 1 and No. 2 cool-season lawn turfs in Kansas, said Ward Upham, horticulturist with Kansas State University Research and Extension.

“Some seed companies are now selling turf varieties that are supposed to do just that,” Upham said. “So far, though, K-State research trials haven’t confirmed those claims in our part of the Plains.”

Tall fescue is the usual choice in Kansas because it’s tough. It can handle some shade. It also requires less water and fertilizer than Kentucky bluegrass needs, he said. A big benefit of bluegrass, however, is that it produces fairly long underground stems. These rhizomes help the grass self-repair and stay thick, when fescue lawns would be responding to stress by becoming bunchy.

“All tall fescues do have mini-rhizomes. But, the industry has been trying to find varieties that are more aggressive in sending out more and longer rhizomes,” Upham said. “The varieties identified thus far are often on the market labeled as rhizomatous tall fescues or RTF types.”

K-State’s turf team has tested some of the top RTFs against other turfs at the university’s experiment fields across Kansas -- conditions in the northeast, south central and west. The trial varieties included:

• RTFs - Grande II, Regiment II, and Water Saver RTF blend (Labarinth, Barlexus II and Barrington).

• Non-RTF fescues - Barlexus and K-31.

• Kentucky bluegrass - SR2284.

The scientists started with a 4-inch diameter plug of each variety. Over time, they measured how many rhizomes the plugs produced, as well as how far the grass spread.

“We found that all of the tall fescues varieties were basically the same in terms of spreading. At the same time, the bluegrass produced more rhizomes and covered its surrounding bare area more quickly than any fescue did,” Upham said. “In other words: There were no silver bullets for Kansas lawns.”

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