Urban lawn management: Addressing the entomological, agronomic, economic, and social drivers

Turfgrass lawns are an integral part of urban areas across the United States. Lawn management is, however, often viewed as an input intensive system, with growing concerns over potential health and environmental hazards from fertilizers and pesticides. Use of these inputs may be reduced by using environmentally-friendly alternatives and following integrated pest management (IPM) approaches. Unfortunately, alternatives have not been widely adopted because of limited information regarding their effectiveness and the perception that they are expensive.;This study was conducted to: (1) examine the role of endophytes, mowing height and mowing frequency on competition between turfgrasses and weeds, (2) compare aesthetic (lawn quality), biological (weed and insect), and economic (lawn management cost) attributes of commercial, consumer, IPM, organic, and untreated lawn management programs, and (3) implement IPM in professional lawn care by comparing biological, aesthetic, and economic parameters of standard program and IPM programs managed by a professional lawn care operator.;My results show that perennial ryegrass (PR) plots had significantly higher weed cover than tall fescue (TF) plots. Turfgrass plots with high levels of endophytes had significantly lower weed cover than plots with low levels of endophytes. However, plots high levels of endophytes had significantly higher dandelion cover than those with low levels of endophytes. Mowing height had a significant impact on weed cover. In general, plots mowed at 5 cm had significantly higher weed cover than plots mowed at 8.9 cm. I also found that weed cover was lowest in the commercial program followed by IPM, organic, and consumer programs. The commercial program had lower white grub density than all other programs, while the organic program had lower white grub density than the untreated program. The commercial program had the highest lawn quality while the untreated program had the lowest. The IPM and organic programs did not differ significantly in lawn quality, but both rated significantly higher than the consumer program. Annual costs were highest in the commercial (...