L.A., L.A., L.A. is on fire...

Yowza - Mother Nature ain't done with California yet this summer. Over the last week, we've had triple digit temperatures in much of southern California and bone-dry conditions that have lead up to wild fires breaking out to the southwest, east and north of the Los Angeles area. (Photo from the LA Times)

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

So far, the biggest fire is the Station Fire directly north of Glendale & Pasadena has burned over 225 square miles of forest (that's about 144,000 acres or approximately 1440 golf courses!) and only has about 40% containment. Heart felt wishes to those being negatively affected by this one.

As far as turf is concerned - those triple digits and dry conditons will surely have brought havoc upon cool season turf in southern California.

This last week brought anthracnose, rapid blight and summer patch, expect more of the same for this next week throughout California….

Hold on to your britches; just a few more weeks to go before we're in the clear!

Gray Leaf Spot and Pythium
No massive GLS outbreaks have been reported in California yet, although a report of its presence was made from Irvine last week and GLS oddly seems to be at its worst when we have summer wildfires in southern California.


Mike Wolpoff (Seacliff Country Club) sent this photo in this week of GLS on kikuyugrass. Applications of Daconil & Banner MAXX had held the disease at bay until this week when weather conditions pushed the disease into high gear. Sometimes high temperatures combine with coastal humidity and fog to really fire GLS outbreaks in coastally-influenced locations. Watch the developing high temps and humidity in parts of southern California that may fire GLS outbreaks on perennial ryegrass & kikuyugrass.

Night time temperatures above 68F in parts of southern and central California could mean Pythium outbreaks on cool season turf. Watch for this disease on low lying areas or those where drainage is poor/water accumulates.

Signing off from the right coast until next week (when I'm back on the left coast!).....