Another stressful week

Hi,

As Brandon cleverly noticed and wrote in the comments, I too am wondering about Dr. Kerns's 'evening' nip of whiskey at 8:11 am (?). Too many turf plugs must driving Jim a little batty. I'm not far behind!

I could probably just cut and paste my information from the past 2 weeks, since it's been more of the same. Hot, humid, stress.

One superintendent told me he had recorded a 2-inch soil temp of 98 degrees. That is pretty smokin' hot. Another mentioned receiving "another unwelcome" 1-inch of rain, with more in the forecast.

On the pathogen side, brown patch, dollar spot, Pythium foliar blight, fairy ring, and the crown rot/basal rot phase of anthracnose have all been active. I even had a sample of Pythium foliar blight from a putting green which is pretty rare here. It’s more common in fairway height turf, or in the collar. But, this plug was crawling with mycelium.

John posted some great info from the GCSAA. If you missed it, be sure to scroll down and give it a read. As noted, communication is pretty key right now, and this may give you some ammo to help discuss things with golfers who might think that "more water" is going to solve all your problems!

On the plus side, we have two brand new Turf Doctors here at K-State. Two grad students, Jason Lewis and David Okeyo recently (one was today!) defended their PhD's in the Hort Department. Congratulations, guys!

Now... gotta get back to those sample plugs in the lab :)