New Design...Same Old Problems

If you have visited the Turf Disease blog in the past, then you will notice that the layout and overall look has changed. A few of the things that are new include:

1. Information buttons (top right): These buttons serve various purposes, but mainly allow you to access the blog by RSS subscribtion or via twitter, view disease images on our new flickr Turf Disease group, or share this information with others through Digg It, Stumble, and Technorati.

2. Search bar (top right): A search bar has been added that allows you to search the site for any topic that you may be interested in.

3. Navigation buttons (bottom left of header): We have added navigation buttons to help you select the content that is appropriate for you. These buttons include links to the home page and to each regional update section (NE = Northeast; SE = Southeast, etc).

4. Image Gallery: Perhaps the most useful addition is the image gallery link which contains various disease symptoms and pathogen signs that are used for identification purposes. We are contstantly working to increase the number of images in the gallery and will add more diseases as photos become availabe.

5. Disease Poll (right column): In an attempt to get the superintendents more involved in the blog, we will periodically post a poll to find out what troubles most are seeing in the field each week or other questions related to turfgrass disease management. Results of the poll are presented in real-time and this gives everyone some indication of what others may be seeing.

OK, as for diseases in the Northeast:

As you might expect, the warm weather and periodic rains are creating conditions favorable for your typical summer time diseases. Brown patch and Pythium are high on the list of potential problems in the field. While others may have seen summer patch for the several weeks, the first case that I had seen all year was last week in Pittsburgh. Also active in the Pittsburgh region was dollar spot and leaf spot.

Following a visit to the Buffalo area, last week was met with some cool morning temperatures and disease activity was relatively low. The only issues noticed was some dollar spot activity in the rough. The 10-day forecast has low and high daily temperatures of 60 and 80, respectively for that region. Throughout much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, temperatures run a steady gradient from the upper 80s-90F in the Maryland region to the upper 70's-80F in Portland, ME. Along with these higher temperatures is the threat of precipitation which should bring along some serious disease pressure as we head into the home stretch of the season.

KEEP in mind that the threat of rain that can disrupt your ability to make preventive or curative applications should be monitored. Your window of opportunity to target serious diseases throughout August may be short and you should take advantage of any chance you get to take action.