No Fun

I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving last week!

Here in California, it's been pretty slow in the Wong Lab. Things are getting pretty cool here (by California standards) and here in the picture, you can see our Tifway-II is pretty much headed into full dormancy in Riverside with our soil temps in the mid-50s. My PhD. student, Chi-Min Chen, and undergrad lab assistant (Erica Serna) are helping me inoculate plots with Ophiosphaerella korrae - one of the causal agents of spring dead spot. I heard the comment of 'this is no fun' a few times this morning which reminded me of a joke my mom told me when I was a kid. It kinda goes something like this:


Q: "What was the name of the first Chinese test-tube baby?"
A: "No-fun Son"
(apologies to the defenders of political correctness out there)

For those who didn't get that maybe this will help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_insemination

The 'maladie de la semaine' continues to be rapid blight on annual bluegrass greens - temperatures in the 60s-80s and a lack of substantial rainfall is allowing salts to continue to accumulate and cause conditions that favor rapid blight.The half-inch of rain that we got in parts of California last week didn't help much in knocking salts & sodium down, e.g. we need substantial or consistent rain to help us flush out the last several months of sodium accumulation on greens.

However, we're expecting some rain and showers, especially in northern and central California starting this weekend /early next week and lasting for a few days. That's great news as far as knocking down salts but bad news as far as Microdochium patch/pink snow mold.With a few days of moisture and daytime temps < 65F, we'll likely see some pinkie firing on annual bluegrass. If you don't already have a preventive fungicide application down, it'd be a good idea to squeeze one out before the showers and rain start in the next few days.

Signing Off from the Left Coast Until Next Week....