Storm damage, dollar spot

Strong storms caused some major tree damage last week. One golf course had some very large trees become uprooted, crashing down on across the fairways. Gusts of 90 mph were recorded (!)

Cooler weather!

A few days after the storm it was remarkably cool. After visiting my field plots on Tuesday morning, I needed some HOT tea instead of ICED tea.

The volume of turfgrass samples is way down this week, too. I hope everyone is enjoying the slight break from the stress.

To make up for the turf, I have had other types of samples including a smelly bag of pumpkin goo:

There wasn’t anything I could do with that one, other than hold my nose, throw it away, and ask for a new sample.

Dollar spot:

Dollar spot is on the rampage in some of our research plots, with infection centers coalescing and becoming quite sunken. The photo above shows infection in an untreated plot of a Cato-Crenshaw blend (very susceptible). In another week (or two…) I’ll try to summarize some of the data from our summer trials.

In the trial in cultivar A4, the dollar spot severity is hanging at about 10% (click to enlarge):

Brown patch:

Brown patch is very active on the research greens at Rocky Ford:

The photo doesn’t quite do it justice–if you look closely (click to enlarge) you can see it better.

What else is going on out there?

Too bad we can’t eat nutsedge:

“sedges have edges” (note the triangle shape)

Too bad we can’t eat spurge, either

I guess if it came down to it, we could eat this guy:

Deep fried, crunchy. Lots of protein.