News

In the garden: The problem could be thatch

Sometimes I will have a sample of lawn grass come into the office or an email picture showing poor growth of the lawn. It’s not disease or insect but the growth just doesn’t look normal. This could be thatch. Thatch control for cool-season lawn grasses such as bluegrass and tall fescue is usually done in the fall but now is the time we should perform this operation for warm-season turfgrasses such as bermudagrass and zoysiagrass. Because these operations thin the lawn, they should be performed when the lawn is in the best position to recover. For warm-season grasses that time is June through July. BufFalograss, our other common warm-season grass, normally does not need to be dethatched.

Read MoreIn the garden: The problem could be thatch

Kansas State Board of Education establishes four priorities heading into 2024 election cycle

TOPEKA — Kansas State Board of Education member Betty Arnold endorsed the goal of expanding the number and quality of educators working in K-12 public school classrooms. “One of the things that really sticks with me are the obstacles … that tend to decrease the interest in that profession.

Read MoreKansas State Board of Education establishes four priorities heading into 2024 election cycle

How deciding not to fix a pipe in Kansas 10 years ago led to the Keystone pipeline’s biggest spill

Independent investigators paint a very different picture from what oil company TC Energy has said publicly about events that led to the Keystone pipeline’s biggest oil spill ever. Their report says, for instance, that the company dug up the section of pipe nearly a decade before it burst because it knew the pipe had warped.

Read MoreHow deciding not to fix a pipe in Kansas 10 years ago led to the Keystone pipeline’s biggest spill