Greetings from Chile

Our Summer Field Day was a success and we did actually have dollar spot to show the audience, but nothing else. All of the talks were well received I think. Dr. Chris Williamson spoke about the residual control of black cutworms with Acelepyrn and had a huge crowd for every stop. Dr. John Stier spoke about annual bluegrass management and a new seeding techinque for Kentucky bluegrass that was also a big success. Dr. Stier's graduate student spoke about velvet bentgrass management in the shade. Dr. Doug Soldat's crew did four talks, one on timing of Primo applications, rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation, fall nitrogen fertility and grasses for sustainable landscapes.

The turf pathology team spoke about dollar spot forecasting, which I have mentioned a few times in previous posts. My Ph.D student Chantel Wilson discussed early-season dollar spot programs. This research basically expands on the theory of early-season dollar spot applications to include a summer long program. The goal of the project is to compare costs of conventional dollar spot programs to these early-season programs. So far all of the early-season programs are working just as well as the conventional programs, but we have saved at least one or maybe two fungicide applications by incorporating an early-season fungicide application targeting dollar spot.

My other Ph.D student and technician, Paul Koch, spoke about fungicide programs that target snow mold and dollar spot together. Essentially we make at most four applications a year in the fall and spring and to date we have not seen these treatments break down. However, we have not seen the plots in a week. Again we plan to compare costs of these novel timings to a more conventional fungicide program.

The weather has remained mild in the Midwest during my time in Chile, at least that is what Skybit has told me. The dollar spot forecasting model did kick off and predict another application after 5 days of relative humidity above 70 %. Based on the nighttime temperatures I doubt brown patch or anthracnose has developed in the Upper Midwest at least.

Chile has been fantastic and there were some excellent talks and posters presented at the meetings. This is a beautiful country and I would encourage anyone to think about Chile for a vacation!! Until next week...