Mid-March is usually one of my favorite times of the year because: 
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– It is the quiet time between snow melt and insect activity ramping up;
– There is enough sunlight to play golf after work; and
– Other than the Masters tournament, it represents the one time of the year where it’s socially acceptable to watch TV in your office during the workday 

​​​​​​​But just as quickly as my NCAA pool brackets were busted (less than 24 hours thanks to Kentucky!), Mother Nature decided to put an end to these lazy days of late winter giving us high temperatures and dry conditions across our region during the week of March 15. The turf is beginning to wake up and annual bluegrass weevil (ABW) activity will be close behind.  

The Penn State Turfgrass Entomology laboratory will be monitoring four sites for WeevilTrak℠ in 2022: The Golf Club (central Ohio), Butler Country Club (north of Pittsburgh), Country Club of Harrisburg (central Pennsylvania), and Elmhurst Country Club (northeast Pennsylvania). The growing degree day (GDD) accumulations have been steady in the western and central sites since March 1 (when we begin monitoring), with the western sites (The Golf Club, Butler Country Club) experiencing the greatest accumulations. 

Penn State sits in a mountainous pocket that creates a cooler environment than Pittsburg, Harrisburg and Philadelphia. I am starting to see the first indications of Forsythia about to break bud in State College (suggesting that overwintering emergence is close at hand). Campus temperature accumulations (37 GDD through March 16) thus far rival that of our warmest spring (2016) since I have been monitoring for WeevilTrak (2014). Many of the 2022 GDD accumulations occurred when we had snow on the ground. I do not know what impact that these early-season accumulations will have on forecasting ABW lifestages or events (e.g., adult peak), but I suspect that a cool down next week might right the ship. I would imagine that this will be the case for many in the swath between Lexington, Kentucky and northeast Pennsylvania that felt the brunt of the March 12 snowstorm. I travelled this path south to Lexington on March 13, then headed north to speak to the Greater Cincinnati GCSA (welcome to the ABW Club!). I was surprised that the snowline essentially stopped just east of Lexington and that most areas to the north were snow-free. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 60s on the 14th in Cincinnati which seemed like a perfect day to get out and start looking for weevils on the move. I did not observe much snow – if any – as I drove east across Ohio. I suspect that our site at the Golf Club in the Columbus area will warm up faster than Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, and therefore will be a nice early warning indicator for people in these areas.