up and down, and flowers

Similar to Jim’s post a couple of days ago, we’ve had some up-and-down weather here, too. Over the past two weeks we’ve had highs ranging anywhere from 61-95. On one particular day, the low was 45 and the high was 90. I’ve suffered both wind-chill and sunburn in a short amount of time.

On one of the sunburn-type days, the Kansas Golf Course Superintendents Association held their annual research and scholarship fundraiser tournament. This year it was at Berkshire Country Club in Topeka. Thank you to Rick Farrant, owner; Ron Rindt, General Manager and David Charles, GC Supt, for hosting. And, thanks to the sponsors and to everyone who came out to play.

Due to some dry conditions, large patch symptoms were fading a bit. But, some rain 2-3 days ago kicked it back in again. Check out the photo to see the orange color at the edge of an active patch.

Speaking of zoysia, it has been flowering over the past few weeks, which causes an off-color cast to the turf which some find objectionable. Then, after mowing, you are left with some tan-colored stalks sticking up all over the place. The first photo below is zoysia. The next, for your viewing pleasure, is buffalograss, a native prairie grass that is used in our region. We even have a few buffalograss fairways around. Obviously, since the stuff evolved here, it can tolerate our climate with few inputs. What is the mysterious third flowering grass? I can't help but to post another favorite prairiegrass, eastern gammagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides) which is related to corn. It's flowering now, too.

Dollar spot is definitely on the march and a lot of superintendents are keeping a close eye.


Now, getting to the serious stuff, I think something has gotten into my esteemed colleagues. They have been busy posting stuff about bermudagrass on crack, the dangers of cheating, and making mock-magazine covers about sexy ascospores and dollar spot centerfolds. I think those guys might need a long-weekend to relax and stop thinking about turf for a couple of days. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Wong and Kaminski. Jim, you seem to be pretty sane, at least for the moment...