Light at the end of the tunnel (e.g., It's August)

It's been a busy week for golf course superintendents in the region as diseases are in high gear and the heat and temperature stress are causing many golf course putting greens to decline. We are hearing a lot of reports of yellowing and discoloration to bentgrass putting greens, possible nematode issues, and the typical diseases that we would expect to see at this time of the year.

Rain storms that swept through much of the mid-Atlantic provided some much needed relief from the drought we were in, but in many cases the rain fell too fast and basically moved via the surface. The good news from that was that many of you who had ponds that were getting low got a "refill". The bad news is that this did little for replenishing the soil and also washed out a few hundred bunkers. There were even reports in parts of southeast PA of flooding due to the massive storm that came through last week. On the other hand, there were also courses that DID manage to get the slow and steady rain that helped to wet the soil. Following these rains, dollar spot became VERY active and anyone not covered with fungicides saw cotton candy fairways on Tuesday.

Heat stress continues to be the biggest issue throughout much of the region and I can't stress enough that just because the turf is declining doesn't mean that it is pathogen related. In many cases, the soil temps are just too high and/or the growing environments too poor. As we hit the home stretch of summer, it is important to continue to be diligent on your water management. Yes, I know that it is not practical for many of you to get out there and hand-water everything as the courses with a $2,000,000 budget do, but the bottom line is that if you are using your overhead irrigation to "syringe" then you are probably over watering (this was from a USGA agronomist who I believe it going to write an article about it for an upcoming issue of the USGA Record).

Active right now: dollar spot, brown patch, Pythium blight, anthracnose, fairy ring, summer patch, others?

Website update: We are in the process of finalizing the details/construction of the new website for Turf Diseases. Some planned features include:

• More authors for more updates
• Restructuring of regional updates in line with USGA Regions
• New "Research" section for the latest research updates from the scientists
• New "Tech" section (you'll have to wait for the launch to find out more)
• Disease profiles and Image galleries
• Disease updates from superintendents

Dr. Vincelli's Chemical Control of Turfgrass Diseases

For those of you who have not yet seen this reference from Dr. Paul Vincelli at the University of Kentucky, you will be excited about this post. Dr. Vincelli has been pulling data from the Plant Disease Management Reports (formerly F&N Tests) for a number of years and he continues to update this reference each year. I have to say that it is one of the best references available that continues to provide current fungicide recommendations based on field research conducted throughout the United States.

Access the original Chemical Control of Turfgrass Diseases 2011 here. (current disease update below)

Vincelli Fungicide Chart


Update on diseases this week:
Brown patch and Pythium blight are very active in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern US at the moment as would be expected. Anthracnose also appears to be making some inroads on annual bluegrass putting greens. A big decision has been whether to apply the DMI fungicide tebuconazole (Torque, QP-Tebuconazole, others?) during the summer heat. This has consistently been one of the most effective anthracnose products in trials throughout the US. In our trials this year, we have not had any significant injury or regulation from repeated applications of tebuconazole, but I will note that our site is not as hot as others in the region AND we are not applying any growth regulators in our trial area. I don't have an answer as to whether you should apply it or not, but I guess it would depend on how much Poa you have, how healthy your greens currently are, and how bad your anthracnose is.

Heat Wave Forecasted for Next Week

We have seen relatively few disease issues in the TDL the past month or so. Throughout Upper Midwest temperatures have been warm, but we have also been quite dry. However the forecast for next week is very different. Highs for next week will been in the low to mid-ninties, more importantly night time temperatures will exceed 72 for most of next week. I included a 7-day forecast from NBC 15 here in Madison, but areas west and south of us will likely experience even hotter temperatures. I know that doesn't compare with the excruciating heat experienced by those in the Southeast and Central US, but the forecast is significant for the Upper Midwest. Especially considering that many courses have substantial Poa annua populations.

IF YOU haven't done so already, this weekend or early next week is a great time to protect your plants against brown patch and Pythium blight. Environmental conditions next week will be ripe for these two diseases. Moreover, anthracnose, dollar spot, summer patch and leaf spot could also flare up depending on where you are with fungicide applications. I mention leaf spot because we have been dealing with a Bipolaris leaf spot in the Midwest for two or three years that does not respond well to applications of iprodione. This disease also remains active throughout the summer months and has been problematic primarily for older golf courses. The disease tends to be more severe on certain clones of older creeping bentgrass fairways causing a "splotchy" reddish appearance to fairways. It does not manifest into distinct symptom. An image of typical stand symptoms is below.

Last year we initiated a fungicide trial at a course in Wisconsin to investigate chemical control options and found that Heritage TL, Insignia and a tank mixture of Chipco 26GT and Daconil Ultrex suppressed symptoms when compared to the non-treated control. Chipco 26GT by itself did not suppress the symptoms, indicating that Daconil Ultrex was more effective in controlling this disease. Note that I use the word suppress we have not been able to prevent the development of this disease, only suppress the symptoms. Here is the report from last year's trial. This has been a difficult disease to work with because it only seems to affect certain clones. Thus it took some time to figure out how to rate it.

Some other things to consider for next week: limit mowing by alternating mowing and rolling, skip clean-up passes, raise the mowing height and absolutely avoid applications of DMI fungicides to putting greens.

A Blog and Disease Update

So far the summer has been very busy for all of us and I personally apologize for not posting as much as I would like. You would think that posting an update a week would be easy, but it is once again proving difficult with all of the research, internship visits, website development and other things that I am currently working on. The good news is that we are rolling out several new bloggers to the site in the next month. I will let them introduce themselves in their first post as Dr. Damon Smith did in his first post from Oklahoma. We are also working on a redesign and launch of a more substantial website (not sure of a roll out date, but at this rate it will be in 2012) which will provide even more information about turfgrass diseases and likely some other areas of focus. So look for that in the future and in the meantime please welcome our new bloggers as they start to post!

In terms of diseases around the region, there is still a lot of talk about the etiolation of bentgrass on putting greens in the mid-Atlantic (and other areas as well). While there have been reports of a bacteria found in association of these symptoms there are as many reports of the symptoms being present without any bacteria found. The bottom line is that the verdict is still out regarding the cause of these symptoms and the impact that this will have as we move closer to the middle of the summer. While I am still skeptical about topic as a whole, I concur that if you are experiencing these symptoms you should perform basic cultural practices to minimize stress as if you had bacterial wilt. These include:

• Raising mowing heights
• Utilization of a dedicated mower for the affected greens
• Mowing when the greens are dry
• Maintaining greens as dry as possible
• Avoiding abrasive cultural practices (e.g., topdressing, vertical mowing, etc)
• While there are no real control measures for BW, the use of Copper-based fungicides may help a little.

Additional diseases that are appearing at this time include your typical brown patch and dollar spot, an unusual basidiomycete associated with what has been called "thatch collapse" (image right), anthracnose, fairy ring, root pythium and probably others that I am forgetting. In general, this is the time when most of our summer diseases start kicking it into high gear.

For more information on Bacteria , you can visit a search I did on this blog.

Things are picking up FAST!

Yesterday (this was meant for yesterday, but new disease activity today [Tuesday] has me posting a day late) I had the pleasure of hanging out at the Rutger's Annual Golf Classic which raises funds for their research program. I even got to play a little golf with our Midwest blogger Jim Kerns. Having left State College on Sunday and not really seeing much of anything on the disease front at Penn State, I was excited to find out if there were any actual turf diseases in the field...we hit the jackpot in North Jersey.

While certain diseases like anthracnose, leaf spot and brown ring patch were very active, I was surprised to see active dollar spot and RECOVERING brown patch (looked like it was active about a week ago or so). I think that things have been some moist and humid that everything is just taking off at this point. This would definitely be the earliest I have ever seen brown patch in the mid-Atlantic region and is in general pretty early for dollar spot as well.

Thatch collapse

This morning I headed into the Valentine research facility in State College and was surprised to see a LOT of disease activity there as well. We still don't have any dollar spot and brown patch is definitely a ways off for us, but there are several things going on. First, seedheads are in full force right now and we will be rating our plots over the next few weeks to see what worked and at what timing. As for diseases we are seeing: red thread, leaf spot, brown ring patch (images below, we are confirming by isolation...update to come), thatch collapse (see next month's GCM issue), Microdochium patch, and probably something else that I am forgetting.

So diseases are here or just around the corner...we could be in for another long year.

Superintendents Encouraged to take Anthracnose Survey!

TAKE THE SURVEY

As you may remember a relatively large group of researchers from various universities across the country have been actively working on research related to the management of anthracnose basal rot of annual bluegrass. The project started about 5 years ago and was kicked off by gathering information from about 400 superintendents and turf professionals to figure out what was happening in the field and what was lacking the way of research-based recommendations. Well we have come to the end of the first phase of the project and are hoping to 1) gather information about your current management strategies and 2) utilize this information to fine tune our research priorities over the next 5-year phase of the project.

Thanks to the help of the Golf Course Superintendent's Association, we have launched our follow up survey that many of you requested to be a part of. Well now's your chance. Please help us in our goal of finding better solutions to your anthracnose problems by filling out the online survey.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Civitas Update....By Popular Demand

First, my apologies for the tardiness of this post. The pre-Thanksgiving travel crunch got the best of me last week, and of course I spent the entire weekend watching football and hockey, so I am just now getting caught up! Several people have asked what happened to the Civitas update, so here it is:

Civitas is a new product for disease and insect control in turfgrasses that was developed by Suncor, formerly known as PetroCanada. The active ingredient is mineral oil, otherwise known as 'horticultural oil', which has been used for management of plant pests for many years. It has just never been used in turf because of issues with phytotoxicity. However, Suncor developed a pigment product, called Harmonizer, that is mixed with Civitas to reduce the potential for phytotoxicity. The advantage of mineral oil as a fungicide is that it has very low environmental impacts due to its low toxicity and rapid breakdown in the environment.

Because it contains oil and pigment, Civitas has a very noticeable effect on the color and appearance of the turf. The Harmonizer pigment, depending on the application rate, is a very dark green, similar to that provided by an application of Triton Flo or Tartan. Some people have complained that transfer of the pigment to shoes and clothing has been a problem, but I haven't rolled around on our research plots yet to see how big of a problem that is.

The mineral oil component of Civitas also gives the turf a distinct greasy appearance, very similar to that caused by an application of a wetting agent like Cascade. This greasy appearance is most evident in the morning and persists for several days to a week after application. Because of these unique characteristics of Civitas, I suggest that people try it out on a nursery green or putting green before treating the whole course with it.

We've been evaluating Civitas for control of various turf diseases for three years now. For a summary of our previous results, please see my post from last year entitled Civitas shows promise for control of dollar spot and brown patch. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom provided by Wakar Uddin, Bruce Clarke, and others regarding their experiences with Civitas.

We continue to see similar results against dollar spot and brown patch in our trials. However, this year we ran into serious problems with phytotoxicity when Civitas and Harmonizer was tank-mixed with Daconil and Banner Maxx. The injury appeared very quickly after the first application in May and became more severe as time went on. As you can see in the graph to the left, it is also interesting to note that half rates of the mixture components did not reduce the amount of phytotoxicity observed. Based on this result, we definitely recommend that Civitas and Harmonizer should not be mixed with Daconil and Banner, or with other fungicides until we have the opportunity to evaluate more mixtures for their safety.

We haven't seen significant phytotoxicity from applications of Civitas and Harmonizer alone in our trials, but some users have reported injury during times of severe stress, with high temperatures consistently above 90F. It makes sense that it could create problems to coat the turf leaves in oil under these types of conditions.

To summarize, Civitas has good activity against several important turf diseases like dollar spot, brown patch, anthracnose, and leaf spot diseases. Although it does not provide acceptable control alone in most cases, my opinion is that it could be useful as part of a disease control program. Civitas and Harmonizer should not be mixed with other fungicides or applied to severely stressed turf, or severe injury could result. However, if you are interested in using products that pose less risk to environment, then Civitas is a good choice.

Honor (boscalid + pyraclostrobin)

Honor is a relatively new fungicide from BASF that contains the active ingredients boscalid and pyraclostrobin. Boscalid is the active ingredient in the excellent dollar spot fungicide Emerald and pyraclostrobin is the active ingredient in Insignia. Like Insignia, Honor will also be marketed under the umbrella of Intrinsic brand fungicides from BASF. If you have not heard of this, it basically states that pyraclostrobin may provide some additional plant health benefits aside from disease control. If you recall, John posted a blurb about our meeting at Farmlinks in October where we shown all the data behind the Intrinsic label. Although the data is a bit sketchy, there does appear to be some benefit to the plant. Before I go any further remember that these are fungicides and should only be used for disease control!

Disease Control

Honor is an excellent fungicide for broad spectrum disease control because it takes advantage of the dollar spot activity of boscalid and the brown patch and anthracnose activity of pyraclostrobin. Other diseases listed on the label are gray leaf spot, fairy ring, take-all patch and pink snow mold just to name a few. Therefore it could fit into a fungicide program for tees and greens at almost anytime of the year. However, I think it fits best during July or August when brown patch and anthracnose are likely to develop in the Midwest. Below are a few graphs highlighting the strengths of Honor against dollar spot. If you want to see how Honor's efficacy against anthracnose and brown patch compares to other fungicides, click on the diseases and you will see reports from Dr. Bruce Clarke at Rutgers University.

Curatively Honor (boscalid in particular) is slow to reduce the dollar spot epidemic, but overtime provides the best suppression. Preventatively Honor controls dollar spot well, but only provides acceptable control at the 1.1 oz rate under the pressure we experienced this year.

Summary

Honor is an excellent product especially for dollar spot and brown patch. I think the best fit for this particular product is during mid summer when dollar spot is still active and brown patch and anthracnose are just starting to get going. Plus pyraclostrobin also has activity against Pythium blight under lower pressures. Essentially this product could almost fit anywhere in a fungicide program in the Midwest.

Fungicide Review: Polyoxin D

Polyoxin-D: Mother Nature’s gift for fighting Rhizoctonias (and some other important diseases).

Polyoxin-D zinc salt is the active ingredient in two turfgrass fungicides: Endorse (Arysta) and Affirm (Cleary Chemical). There’s been some switching around of names and products since 2009 (as discussed last year) when Arysta LifeScience took back the distribution rights for the 2.5% WP formulation and Cleary’s introduced Affirm, a 11.3% WDG formulation, that contained the same active ingredient. Either way, both formulations have the same range of disease control and I haven’t seen any data so far to suggest that the two formulations have any significant differences in disease control between them. Polyoxin D is classified as a FRAC Group 19 fungicide (polyoxin antibiotics) and presently, only polyoxin D is registered as a turf fungicide in the U.S. (Image to the right taken from alanwood.net)

There are a number of other polyoxins out there (polyoxin A, polyoxin B,…polyoxin J, etc.), and they all share a common “ancestry” as far as being discovered as metabolites of Streptomyces bacteria (which are commonly called Actinomycetes). Streptomyces are typically soil inhabiting bacteria and are potent producers of some very important anti-bacterial and anti-fungal antibiotics. Interestingly, antibiotics derived from Streptomyces species account for two-thirds of our commercially available antibiotics including streptomycin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline and vancomycin (anti-bacterials) and nystatin and amphotericin B (anti-fungals).

Polyoxin D was discovered in 1965 as a fermentation product of Streptomyces cacoi var. asoensis (Suzuki et al 1965 Journal of Antibiotics Ser. A), so interestingly, this molecule has been around for a long time! Commercial fungicides containing polyoxin D utilize this active ingredient in the form of a zinc salt. Why, may you ask? Because the polyoxin D molecule is extremely water soluble and it would wash off of plant surfaces easily; the zinc salt form of polyoxin D is much more stable and enhances the longevity of the fungicide on the plant surface.

Biochemically, polyoxin D inhibits the formation of chitin, which is the main component of the cell walls of true fungi (Ascomycetes, Basidiomycetes, etc.). You can see from the photo here (taken from Endo et al. Journal of Bacteriology 1970), that fungal cells treated with polyoxin D (top photo) are unable to make functional cell walls and thus can’t function normally like the untreated ones (bottom photo).

Since Oomycetes like Pythium don’t use chitin in their cell walls, polyoxin D won’t affect these “water mold” type fungi. Polyoxin D is considered a local penetrant fungicide, and does not translocate easily upwards in plants like some other systemic fungicides, so coverage is important when applying these.

The earliest use of polyoxin D was for the control of rice sheath blight (Rhizoctonia solani) in Japan back in the 1970s. Not surprisingly, for turf diseases, Endorse and Affirm would be considered strongest against Rhizoctonia diseases like brown patch, large patch and yellow patch and the Rhizoctonia-like Waitea diseases like brown ring patch and leaf and sheath spot.

In a large patch trial we did in 2008, you can see that Endorse was very good in controlling large patch.

Applications made 16 Apr and 6 May to bermudagrass

In a brown ring patch trial also conducted in 2008, Endorse provided some of the quickest control of the disease, but didn’t have as much residual as some other treatments. We suggest tank mixing Endorse or Affirm with another fungicide like a DMI (Banner MAXX, Tourney, Triton or Torque) to get good knock down and added residual.

One curative application made on 26 Apr

In our California trials, we’ve seen it been pretty good against anthracnose and although other materials seemed to be better, Endorse and Affirm could certainly be added into the summer rotation.

Six applications total from Jun to Aug, 2005 data

Other diseases on the labels include pink and gray snow molds (it seems like they are best tank mixed with another fungicide for the best control, but ask Jim about that one), red thread, leaf spots, gray leaf spot, and fairy ring.

Endorse looked pretty good vs. fairy ring in trials conducted by myself and Mike Fidanza :www.gcsaa.org/gcm/2007/may/pdfs/treatingFR.pdf

However, I can’t say that I’d recommend polyoxin D by itself for gray leaf spot, I just haven’t seen enough data to say it’s a good choice for this disease when other fungicides are available.

OK – that’s enough geeking out for tonight – until next week, signing off from the Right Coast….

A way-past due update from the West

Damn, sometimes life gets so far ahead of you that it's hard to catch up!

Sorry for the lack of posts for the last several weeks, no excuses, other than just being lame.

California has certainly had one of the weirdest summers I can remember having a slow, cool start and ending with record high 100s in southern California in October. I think it wasn't too bad overall judging by the total number of samples we had in the diagnostic lab. Anthracnose and summer patch were pretty active this year on Poa greens, but diseases like gray leaf spot on rye were not big troublemakers this year. Hopefully as guys start aeration, they'll have a chance to relax a little after this summer, well, unless you have rapid blight (see below).

As far as the desert guys go, there could be some bumps ahead on the road for overseeding. Last week, we had a few days in the 90s with rain and night time temps in the 70s; this next week, the night time temps could stay above 68F for a few days during the week, so keep an eye out for Pythium during the overseed.

It's Back!!!!
Rapid blight is starting to pop up on Poa greens in California as temperatures start to mellow; leach greens prior to aerification if you can as the sand topdressing can really flare rapid blight if it's salty. Application of fungicides like mancozeb, Compass or Insignia will ceratinly help, but salt is the #1 issue to deal with.







NCGA's 2010 Assistant Superintendent Bootcamp

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending this event in Monterey, CA organized by Mike McCullough at the NCGA. There were about 35 attendees there who got to hear presentations from speakers such as Mike Richardson (Univ. of Arkansas), Bruce Wiliams (Valleycrest), Ty Murray (California Highway Patrol), Andy Staples (Golf Resource Group), and Brian McRae (The Preserve Golf Club) as well as group discussions with Tom Junk (Robert Talbot Co.), Jimmy Becker (NCGA), Bob Klinsteker (San Francisco Golf Club), Drew Barnett (Philadelphia Cricket Club) and Earl Kennel (Monterey Peninsula Country Club). Here you can see Mike McCullough addressing the group at the NCGA HQ at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach.

Quick summary and highlights of speaker presentations (boiled down to the syrup) that I was able to attend (apologies to the guys who I didn't get to see talk!):

Mike Richardson: 'New Technology to Enhance Your Course'
- Technology is everywhere, use these tools for environmental measurements, mapping applications and even your iPhone to stay ahead of the curve for turf management.

Frank Wong: IPM Planning for Disease Management'
- Check out GCSAA's new IPM planing tool: http://www.eifg.org/sustainability/toolbox/ipmguide/

Bruce Williams: 'Networking'
- 'It's not just what you know, but who you know as well' --> creating sucessful networks is a part of having a sucessful career.

Ty Murray: 'Transporting Hazardous Materials'
- Lock it down and label it when you're taking any hazardous materials on the road or face the long arm of the law.

Mike Richardson: 'Foliar Fertilizer Programs'
- Regular foliar applications of low rates of nitrogen fertilizers give you more consistent plant growth and quality; think urea - it's effective and cost-efficient.

Frank Wong: 'Optimizing Fungicide Applications'
- Mike Fidanza says: Flat fans nozzles using 2 gal water/1,000 sq ft give you the best overall disease control; extra water is need to control soil borne diseases like fairy ring.

Brian McRae: 'Outside Influences on Your Career'
- Bad stuff can happen to you; it may be out of your control, but personal relationships you make in the industry & the networks you establish can often help save you or at least soften the blow.

Andy Staples: 'Sustainable Golf Courses'
- 'Sustainability' and green projects have the most impact on golf course design and operations when ther is a real cash value or benefit associated with them; green projects for the sake of 'feeling good' aren't as likely to be as sucessful as green projects that can save (or make) a course a real dollar amount.

Drew Barnett: 'Blogging'
- Use this medium to keep your membership aware of why things are happening on your course; it's a way to show that you're looking out for their long term interests.

Bruce Williams: 'Developing Skills that Make You a Desired Commodity'
- "When your girlfriend (or wife) asks you 'does this make me look fat?' the answer is obvious, but sometimes how fast you answer makes all of the difference."

*Probably the most important thing I heard at the meeting! Bruce was talking about having an updated resume ready and being ready to respond when opportunity knocks on the door.

NCGA Seeks Interns for 2011
Speaking of opportunities, the NCGA is looking for interns for next year. If you're just getting into the industry and want some experience in California, check this out:
http://www.ncga.org/superintendent-training-program/

Applications are due November 1st!

OK - that's about it for this week's entry - I'm in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing from October 10 - 22; hopefully I'll have things to share from the far far West next week!

Until then, signing off from the right coast... (PS - my sabbatical is officially over when I get back from China, so expect me to be back on the left coast regularly starting in a few weeks).

Anthracnose, Summer Patch, F-bombs, Nematodes and Cee Lo

Anthracnose & Summer Patch in California

'Hey - Did-ya Miss Me?' Anthacnose was plentiful in the UCR diagnostic lab this week

I was back in California this week and greeted with triple digit temperatures - normally I'd say the dry heat of California is better than the steamy heat of Washington DC, but 112 degrees in Riverside was still pretty bad!

I always say that anytime we get wide temperature swings, anthracnose is likely to rear its ugly head, and this last week was no exception - Naveen was getting quite a few of these samples in the lab.

As John had mentioned earlier this week, summer patch has been pretty active on annual bluegrass greens and we saw it on a few samples in California as well. Back in the 'good old days' of the 90's, it seemed like anthracnose and summer patch control went hand in hand, but recent developments have resulted in some 'complications'.

As we all know, anthracnose has become the primary concern of most guys out there with annual bluegrass greens, but summer patch can often be a hidden problem. Here are two observations regarding summer patch development this year.

#1 Targeting Anthracnose but Forgetting About Summer Patch
Sixty-five to sixty-eight degrees soil temperature in the spring is the magic range for initiating anthracnose & summer patch control programs with 2 to 3 applications of DMI-fungicides like Banner MAXX, Trinity, Triton, Tourney or Torque, but after that, control diverges quickly for these diseases. Fungicides like the Heritage (azoxystrobin) and Insignia (pyraclostrobin) are my top choices for summer patch control (thiophanate-methyl, e.g. 3336, is also a consideration), and should be applied monthly in the summer to keep summer patch in check. But....as we all know, anthracnose resistance to the QoIs and benzimidazoles in many locations makes these ineffective for anthracnose control. For mid-summer applications, products like chlorothalonil (Daconil), fludioxonil (Medallion), polyoxin-D (Endorse/Affirm) and Signature (Fosetyl-Al + StressGard pigment) are my go to materials. DMIs can also be effective, but applied in the summer heat may cause some unwanted PGR effects.

Superintendents worried primarily about anthracnose may be applying anthracnose-fungicides but forgetting to use Heritage & Insignia on a monthly program. As a result, summer patch can break through what seems like a good program that is unfortunately tailored specifically for anthracnose.

#2 Compass vs Insignia in Rapid Blight Control Programs & Effect on Summer Patch
Rapid blight is another disease that California superintendents battle in the spring and summer, and Compass (trifloxystrobin) and Insignia are the 'go to' systemic fungicides for rapid blight control (mancozeb is our only contact option), but differ in their physical properties. Compass is very strong as a foliar fungicide, but less systemic than Insignia and will not give you effective summer patch control. If you've been using Compass regularly in the summer, remember that you could be under-gunned for summer patch control, and have to apply additional materials.

Bottom Line: Anthracnose, summer patch and rapid blight management require specific fungicides - choose wisely and know what fungicides won't give you any overlap in disease control.

Anthracnose Rescue Fungicide Programs
If you have anthracnose breaking out on greens, it is most likely that you (i) have had a serious stress event, (ii) are too lean on fertility or (iii) have had a lapse in fungicide protection in your program.

Notice that 2/3 of the 'issues' are not fungicide-related. Correcting cultural practices and fertility is the top priority, but here are some thoughts on a 'rescue' program for active anthracnose outbreaks.

1. DO NOT BOMB IT WITH QOIs/STROBIES OR T-METHYL FUNGICIDES EVEN IF THEY STILL WORK FOR YOU. That is a recipe for resistance, big time! Anthracnose is already a high-risk pathogen when it comes to QoI and benzimidazole fungicides, and using them as 'eradiciants' in this way increases the chance of selecting out resistant populations.
2. CHLOROTHALONIL IS YOUR FRIEND. This is partially why I encourage guys to save up some of your 10 or so chlorothalonil applications for the summer. Chlorothalonil will not 'cure' existing infections, but can kill spores developing in acervuli and prevent new infections (if you let your foliar anthracnose go all the way in to the crowns, you're hosed, don't wait til that happens as you won't be able to get on top of it with fungicides in the summer). Being a contact fungicide, you will need to apply frequently to ensure that you have lasting coverage on plants. Applying the normal label rate, at a shorter application interval, is likely more effective than the max. rate once or at longer intervals.
3. MEDALLION, ENDORSE & AFFIRM --- These are 'limited systemic' fungicides and can give you added control of anthracnose, but are at moderate risk for fungicide resistance. I would not encourage them to be used as 'eradicants' but you can apply them to help with protecting plants once you have the active outbreaks arrested with aggressive chlorothalonil use. Right now, there is no resistance to these, & we want to keep it this way for the time being.
4. SIGNATURE, ALIETTE, & PHOSPHITES --- These have for the most part, 'indirect effects' on anthracnose, and will not work as 'eradicants'. The data I've seen shows that the active molecule in these fungicides is not super-toxic to anthracnose, and provide protection via induced plant defenses or other mechanisms; and you guys know how I feel about StressGard pigment being a good thing for annual bluegrass in the summer. Tank mixing them with your chlorothalonil will give you added protection but they will be acting on healthy plants vs. new infections and not directly killing the active anthracnose.

F-Bombs, Nematodes and Cee-Lo
Ok - I've gotten some (for the most part) good natured ribbing from some guys this week about my comments on Turf Net regarding what we know about nematodes.

http://www.turfnet.com/view_news.php?obj_id=606

Call me crass, but the F-word is strongly correlated with the discussion of turf diseases; it's one of those words that in its various forms has use as a noun, verb or adjective, especially when discussing anthracnose, summer patch or rapid blight, and annual bluegrass in general.

On the other hand, in all seriousness regarding the comments, we really don't know enough about nematodes on turf, and really really don't have enough chemical controls for the problems - making me drop the F-bomb to drive home the point.

Compared to the 30 or so university turf pathologists in the US and dozen or so different fungicide active ingredients, we have like 4 turf nematologists (Crowe, McClure, Wick & Mitkowski come to mind) and 1 nematicide (Curfew), plus any Nemacur stockpiled in the shed, that can control nematodes down in the soil .

You know I love me some fungus, but considering the issues caused by nematodes like root knot, stem & gall (Anguina), spiral, sting and others, and more importantly - the high amount of "mis-information" about nematodes and their control out there - it's a good time to put some attention and funds towards this. That's my 2% of a dollar.

Finally, if you can't get enough of the F-Bomb, check out Atlanta-based Cee Lo's new music single and song here:
http://www.youtube.com/ceelogreen#p/u/1/CAV0XrbEwNc

(WARNING: DEFINITELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN)

If you're not offended by the F-bomb and like Old School Motown-Style R&B, it's certainly worth a listen. I suspect they will have taken this one down from the internet by the time you read this blog today, but I'm sure you'll hear about this one soon.

OK - Back in DC as of the Morning and Signing off from the Right Coast.....

Of Fungicide Programs and Control Plots...

Well, I'm sitting here this evening having spent the day looking at plots that for most of our audience would make you cringe, but for me, has me doing cartwheels! The images you see in this post are from my fungicide program trial. This trial allows for multiple applications of various fungicides on a set schedule (usually a 14 day interval), and an evaluation of the diseases that occur in various plots along the way. This year has been epic in the Southeast. Heat, humidity, and regular rainfalls have combined to push the stress levels to unprecedented levels. In an more 'usual' year we would get some brown patch, dollar spot, and if we were lucky some fairy ring to evaluate. This year we have seen the following turfgrass diseases in these plots: dollar spot, brown patch, fairy ring, Pythium blight, and anthracnose. It is clear from thephotos what programs are holding their own under the pressure, which ones are doing ok but have some weaknesses, and those (including controls) that just aren't cutting the mustard.In the area, we have observed much of the same problems as the last several weeks; heat and humidity stressed turf. We have had a cooling off period this week, but that is really a misnomer

because whiles the highs are in the upper 80's, the lows are in the mid-upper 70's and the humidity is thick enough you feel like you should be swimming to the next tee. As the various golf organizations have declared in their statements- this is the time for defensive turfgrass management. Translated- do what you need to do to maintain turfgrass cover, and worry about greenspeeds later. Also pay close attention to water management (see image) as these issues

can take a toll in the form of black layer.

Finally, from a fungicide program perspective, take the time now to make some notes on what you think was weak about your current program while it is fresh in your mind. Also, note things that you would change and improve, because with the summer we have had you might be able to show the folks involved on your greens committee or general management that skipping cultural practices, or fungicide applications might just be a fool's errand chasing the almighty dollar.

Here's to a little cool-down!

Brandon

Dude, where's my summer?

Downright Pleasant in California

Growing up in the Central Valley of California, I remember those long Fresno summers of 20-30+ 100-degree days where even the normally pasty-white, redheaded kids of Irish descent were sporting tans that made George Hamilton look like a albino naked mole rat, and the Channel 26 TV reporters were regularly frying eggs on the sidewalk outside of the Fashion Fair Mall.

Well, this ain't one of those summers in California. Aside from some short heat spells, it's been pretty damn mild, with temps being in the 70's on the coasts, 90's inland and only hitting triple digits in places like Fresno and Palm Springs this week.

Having spent the last week at the APS meetings in Charlotte in the company of all of the U.S. turf pathologists, it was nice to avoid being in the middle of discussions about heat-killed turfgrass and the hot potato talk of bacterial wilt.

On the other hand, we're seeing some weird disease patterns emerging from our diagnostic lab. The last two weeks have brought in diagnoses like anthracnose on creeping bentgrass (samples from Alameda, Tulare and Sacramento counties) and Curvularia blight on bermudagrass from Arizona. The presence of both diseases are likely attributed to some kind of 'stress' (irrigation, compaction, low fertility, etc.) as both anthracnose and Curvularia are typically very weak pathogens on these turf species.

We're also getting some rapid blight samples from southern and central coast locations. I am guessing that the cooler than normal temperatures (70-85F is optimal for rapid blight), fog or overcast conditions are helping that disease fire. We were surprising very low for rapid blight diagnoses this Spring, but the current Spring-like conditions in these areas has just pushed the calendar back a few months for courses at these locations.

It could very well be one of the best years in recent memory for growing grass in California; and guess where I am --- 3,000 miles away in Washington DC this summer!

Steamed & Drowned on the East Coast

While my friends back home are enjoying the mild summer, I'm alternately being steamed and drowned here in Alexandria, VA. Like much of the south and midwest (see Lane, Jim, Megan and John's recent blogs), the DC area has been gripped by prolonged heat broken by violent thunderstorms. Just last Thursday, I and about 60,000 other residents in the DC area lost power after heavy rain and winds ripped through the area. It happened again today - check out the story here:

Check out the link on the Turf Disease Facebook Page here: http://www.facebook.com/turfdiseases

Somehow, that southern California smog may not be all that bad to deal with.....

News from the APS Meetings: Fungicides (or Lack Thereof)

As the rest of the boys (plus Dr. K) were saying, we've been at the APS meetings all week - well, except for Lane who was answering frantic calls from superintendents and going back and forth from site visits to the meeting almost every day (the man had a microscope in his hotel room to look at disease samples - that's dedication for you!).

One thing that struck me was the lack of new fungicide active ingredients being discussed that are effective for turfgrass disease control. There was a good amount of buzz over, ametoctradin, a new BASF oomycete-fungicide for downy mildew and Phytophthora control, but sadly this one isn't effective vs the Pythiums that we deal with on turf. I hope we see some new fungicides for turf soon - we could use them!

There were also a good number of SDHI-resistance talks, but mainly on Botrytis, not turf diseases. SDHI's are the succinate-dehydrogense inhibitors, that include boscalid (Emerald) and flutolanil (ProStar). I have a hunch that we'll eventually see more broad-spectrum SDHIs for turf diseases in the future, but we'll have to keep waiting for the time being. The good news about this research is that we're going to able to use their Botrytis information to detect and help deal with SDHI-resistance for turfgrass diseases when it happens.

OK - until next week, signing off from the right coast.....

Pathologist or Psychologist

How come we don't get paid as much as Dr. Phil?

Image from by greggoconnell

We have moved into August and hopefully that means only 2 or 3 weeks until some sort of a break arrives. This has definitely been a brutal July (and summer for that matter) and my discussions with golf course superintendents' recently has me feeling more like a psychologist than a pathologist.  Samples have been rolling in from throughout the Northeast with fears of everything from bacterial wilt to summer patch to Pythium.  As far as real diseases go, summer patch seemed to be making its way onto golf courses and athletic fields in the last week or so.  In many cases, people were disappointed about not getting more than 3 weeks of control from the usually effective fungicides. Since this year is anything but usual, I just write this off to extremely high pressure.  My recommendation for curative control has always been high rates of thiophanate-methyl.  I did read Dr. Vincelli's fungicide efficacy chart found here and he mentions that t-methyl has been erratic in its control so I was wondering what you all thought.  In my experience it has been the best, but perhaps geography plays a role in this.

Other diseases and anthracnose update.

In addition to the widespread outbreaks of summer patch, there have been reports of several other diseases including Pythium, gray leaf spot, brown patch, dollar spot, anthracnose, rust (in my backyard), and probably others. Just a brief update on anthracnose. Our research trials this year have been some of the best in recent history and there are several products standing out in the study. The new fungicide Torque (tebuconazole) is once again performing outstanding with less than 1% disease in plots as compared to the ~45% anthrancose in the untreated control plots. Also performing exceptionally well are Daconil (3.2 oz) + Signature (4.0 oz), Signature (4.0 oz) applied every 14-d in combination with Triton FLO (triticonazole) + chlorothalonil alternated on 14-d intervals, and several experimental fungicides.  Moderate anthracnose suppression is being seen within plots receiving only DMI or chlorothalonil, which again shows the importance of tank-mixing these fungicides (they look great in the study when combined).  On the flip side of things, the QoI chemistry is not holding up and there is likely resistance issues at our research plots at Penn State.  Oh, and I almost forgot about the fertility plots.  We have some fertility treatments in combination with Signature alone. Signature alone is providing about 25 to 50% control of anthracnose while Signature + the various fertilizers are providing about 60 to 80% control. So the take home message is to tank-mix and spoon feed to help suppress your anthracnose.

Spreading the word about the difficult year.
Both the USGA and GCSAA have put out their notices to golf courses describing the excessive heat and humidity this year.  This is good information for members and greens committees wondering what in the world is going on.  You can find the GCSAA's report here and the USGA's report here.  The difficult thing for most golfers to understand is "why does our course look bad when I played next door and the greens are great?".  Unfortunately, a lot of this can't be explained or not in a simple way.  Most of the time the difference is sound cultural practices employed previously and not anything done this year.  Those superintendents that were allowed to pull cores multiple times, install drainage on poorly drained greens, or selectively remove trees that were causing shade problems are the winners.  It could, however, be as simple as explaining to members that your crappy Poa greens just won't hold up like the bentgrass greens at a neighbors.

Rainfall and Fairy Rings Throughout the Midwest

Our wet weather has continued throughout the Midwest. Accompanying the wet weather, has been heat- at least heat for us. I feel guilty saying we are hot when I saw the temperatures forecast for the Northeast and Southeast. On the weather channel this evening a couple took a picture of a bank marquee showing temperatures in New Jersey topping 100 degrees! However, we have been in the upper 80's, which is hot for us. Consequently we have seen anthracnose, brown patch and dare I say even some Pythium blight. Don't freak out about Pythium blight because it was only observed near leaky heads or drainage areas.

I have seen a lot of is fairy ring over the last few weeks. It appears to be more prevalent this year compared to last. If fairy ring has been problematic the best way to control the disease is to apply DMI fungicides (Bayleton, Tourney, Triton FLO and Trinity) when 5- day average soil temperatures are between 55 and 65 degress. However, we have moved out of this range in most places in the Midwest. Curatively, an application or two of Prostar (flutolanil) will help alliviate symptoms, especially when the applications follow solid tine aerficiation. If solid tining is not an option than a wetting agent should be tank mixed with the fungicide. Some golf course superintendents have good luck masking symptoms with applications of wetting agents, nitrogen and/or iron. This may be an excellent approach for a large breakout on fairways. If you have more questions about fairy ring, please attend our WTA Summer Field Day on July 27th! Dr. Lee Miller is going to join us to talk about his research on fairy ring.

With respect to diagnosing fairy ring, my best advice is to be like Tucan Sam and follow your nose. The thatch layer underneath the affected area will have a nice mushroomy aroma. You may also notice the thatch may have an orange tint. Another nice technique is to "incubate" a sample in a moist chamber, which is a tupperware container with a moist paper towel underneath the sample. The image below demonstrates the results of an incubation. I still encourage golf course superintendents to send a sample to a local turfgrass disease diagnostic lab if symptoms present themselves in an odd fashion.



Last week I had the great pleasure of showing Dr. Megan Kennelly around the OJ Noer Facility. It was a nice morning and the only disease I was able to show her was dollar spot. One of our putting greens has essentially become a 10,000 square foot dollar spot! I hope one day we can have Megan back to talk about her research on moss and nozzles (just to name a few topics), I think golf course superintendents in the Midwest would enjoy hearing her speak.

Yesterday was another pleasure, a few of us from UW Madison traveled to Whistling Straits to visit with the staff about the upcoming PGA Championship. We had a great visit and we also were given the opportunity to play golf. I cannot wait to see how the pros handle the course this year. I know I had trouble with the long grass a few times! I heard a rumor that John is visiting the Straits this weekend. Wonder if he'll experience the long grass a few times...

Save the BBQ for the 4th, not your Poa greens

Superintendent Douglas Reed very carefully checking greens for anthracnose back in the 'good old days' at Arrowhead Country Club (San Bernardino) in 2003 (Doug where are you these days? Hope things are going well!)

4th of July weekend usually kicks off anthracnose season on Poa greens in California, usually its a combination of heat, increased play on the holiday and crews taking a well-deserved few days off. Fortunately, the 4th lands on a Sunday this year and that means that most problems can get caught first thing on Monday. Although most of California looks like its going to be pretty mild this Holiday weekend, guys in the Central Valley with Poa greens should be especially careful with avoiding anthracnose. A little extra prevention with fungicides, some syringing and watching your irrigation before this weekend should help avoid any nasty surprises.

Other than that, there's not much to report from California this week, just a few diagnoses from northern California of brown patch from ryegrass and Poa fairways and roughs this week.

Here in Washington DC (where I'm still hiding out on sabbatical) the heat has finally broken for a few days -- I've complained about this before, but damn it's swampy here in the District. According to Univ. of Maryland alum Matt Marsh (and superintendent at Valencia Country Club) "It's like a Petri plate full of fungus" in the summer. After being here through the hottest June on record, I'd have to agree 100%.

Stay safe over the holiday weeekend!

Signing off from the right coast until next week.....

Turf Diseases Showing Their Muscle

Well, if any of you read my weekend post update from my most recent trip to South Africa then you know that I have been out of the loop for about 10 days. Just prior to my departure from State College, however, I noticed a considerable increase in temperatures and relative humidity and could just about smell the dollar spot getting ready to break as I got on the plane. Well, one day later and “boom” it appeared with a vengeance.

So around the region, we are now seeing just about all of the diseases you could imagine during the summer months (except for Pythium). Dollar spot has been active throughout much of the mid-Atlantic region for some time and now seems to be spreading. Anthracnose continues to pitter-patter along on annual bluegrass putting greens and the region even experienced a true “summer heat wave” for at least one day before things seemed to settle back to normal. I am even seeing brown patch on perennial ryegrass in State College. Some jackass decided to seed PRG this spring and "juice" it with nitrogen...oh wait that was me.

Since dollar spot broke, we will be evaluating all of our early-season trials in the next few weeks to see how things turned out. Based on our initial application timings and our applications just prior to our most recent outbreak, this should be a good representation of what a typical early-season application can do. We also are working on a project in conjunction with John Inguagiato at the University of Connecticut to assess the seasonal implications of effective fungicides in plots treated with the early season apps. In other words, are they going to actually help you manage the disease down the road.

Although dollar spot seems to be an “old dog”, you should expect that much more information related to the biology of the pathogen and management practices in the next few years. A group of researchers, lead by Dr. Tredway (NC State; pictured right) and Dr. Boehm (Ohio State), will be joining forces this year to develop a long term project to tackle this disease. I won’t say much about it since this is Lane’s baby, but I am excited none the less.

OK, well the stay at home was short-lived because as you are reading this I am in Ohio for the first round of my internship visits for students in the 2-year program. The first stop is to Muirfield Village to check out a couple of days of the practice rounds for the Memorial Tournament and to visit with my student interning with Paul Latshaw. It is then a quick trip to Oakmont for internship visit #2 and then back to Penn State on Friday for more trials and ratings. Although I will be traveling around the region and will try to report, I don’t anticipate seeing much in the way of diseases at either of these courses. Next week I will be heading through PA and part of New England, so I should be able to get a full sense of what is happening during the month of June.

In case you missed it, we were featured in this weeks GCSAA.tv spotlight. Continue to spread the word!

Mystery Spots & Pink Patches

Mystery Spots In the West
Not much is going on in the West this week – a little brown ring patch here and there and some early season anthracnose are popping up on Poa greens. Weather has been pretty mild in the West with some drizzle and rainfall here and there (more so in the PNW than in California), with temps in the 70s and 80s expected for most of California next week. For the most part, cool season turf, especially Poa, is pretty happy.

One thing that has been reported recently, are white and yellow spots on greens. White spots have been reported sporadically on Poa greens in California in the last week or two.



That's what they typically look like on Poa greens and what is called "white leaf". Although we know that bermudagrass white leaf is caused by a phytoplasma (small wall-less bacteria), so far, no cause (pathogen or otherwise) has been firmly associated with this malady on Poa or bentgrass greens in the U.S. Thus, we don't have any useful management suggestions other than upping N and micronutrient fertility and maybe spraying some chlorothalonil or mancozeb to keep alage out of any thing areas.


On the other hand, we've also gotten some samples of bentgrass from the PNW and Montana that have yellow spots (like the ones above). I suspected Pythium Root Dysfunction in these cases (since we'd picked it up from a Washington bentgrass green last April) or algae causing yellow spot, but examination of samples in the diagnostic lab showed no signs of pathogens, namely Pythium or algae. In this case, I'd have to make the same lame recommendations for white leaf and say let's wait and see what happens.

On a side note - ever been to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz? Trippy, cheesey and fun at the same time. Avoid the use of restricted prescription pain killers before you go there.

Pink Patch

This photo was sent in from Craig Ellis at El Dorado Country Club in Indian Wells. This is a great photo of pink patch on overseeded hybrid bermudagrass. Despite the 'sexier' name, pink patch is very similar to red thread, and is caused by a different fungus. Check out more info on the disease here via Dr. D's pest note on red thread and pink patch.

http://www.hgic.umd.edu/content/documents/TT-24.pdf

Travel Safe!
I hope Dr. Kennelly has a safe trip to Tajikistan this next week. How much trouble can she possibly get in? (a lot - ed.). A quick search for golf courses and Tajikistan on Google gave no results – anyone know of one there? I'm looking forward to hearing about her adventures when she gets back.

Until Next Week, Signing Off From the Right Coast....

Let's get this season started...

Disease activity has been slowly increasing throughout the northeast as we are halfway through the month of May.  Poa seedheads are also causing problems with turf quality on putting greens and fairways where suppression failed.  Dollar spot has been the biggest buzz around the area as it started in some places at least 2 weeks ago.  In State College, we have yet to see any dollar spot but our fungicide trials are going out ASAP in anticipation of symptoms this week or next.

Fungicide trials:

On the Facebook page, some made jokes about diseases magically disappearing once a pathologist puts a trial out at your course.  I (and probably all authors here) have had first hand experience with this over the past few years with trials put out on golf courses.  I had this happen with fairy ring and anthracnose trials in CT and now brown ring patch at Penn State.  In one BRP trial the disease was extremely severe last year and didn't even make an appearance in my preventive trials this year.  We were lucky enough to have an early-curative trial go out at Bucknell Golf Club and we did get some data after the first week of treatments.  When we returned last week for our sequential application, however, the disease was all but gone.  We put out the treatments anyway and will see if the weather changes and brings some symptoms back.

The natural lack of disease pressure on golf courses, however, is much better than dealing with mistakes.  There is nothing more frustrating than putting out several weeks of treatments only to have the spray tech forget to skip your study with the tank-mix of fungicides...oops!  Luckily I have not had this happen in ANY of my trials on golf courses which is a testament to all of the golf course superintendents that allow us to create checkerboards of dead and healthy grass on their greens and fairways. 

One final word on Poa seedheads:

There were varying reports of success (and failure) with seedhead control this year in the Northeast.  This is really no different than any year and it always seems to come down to timing.  For us, we applied various treatments on April 1 and when seedheads finally started to show up, we saw that the best suppression was being provided by Embark.  Our Primo + Proxy treatments did suppress the seedheads to some degree, but not to what I would consider an acceptable level.  One problem with the Embark is the amount of injury we saw to the turf.  Whether it was from the strange temperature fluctuations or the late frosts, the turf didn't look so good for a few weeks.  Recovery is finally starting to become apparent now (about 3-4 weeks after the application), but it will be interesting to see the long term impact of the treatments on turf quality throughout the year.

 Poa seedheads were effectively suppressed with Embark (both rates)

Severe injury to the turf was observed in both the fairway and putting green trials

Other diseases:
Anthracnose continues to be a problem on annual bluegrass putting greens.  Brown ring patch has generally disappeared around Central PA, but reports of it on golf courses in the region continue.  Leaf spot has also picked up in the rough on many golf courses.  Red thread is slowly starting to make its appearance in higher cut turf.  Conditions for turfgrass growth are very good right now and it is likely that some areas that yet to be fertilized thus far will show the greatest signs of red thread (and dollar spot if you haven't seen it yet).

Leaf spot, Waitea, and growth...

Today I attended Rutger's Annual Turfgrass Research Tournament at Fiddler's Elbow in Northern New Jersey (Image courtesy hunter-pr.com).  The event was again a great one which raises a lot of money to support ongoing research projects.  Congratulations to Bruce Clarke and all of the faculty and staff for putting together a great event.  Although the event was great, the purpose of me bringing this up was that this was the first time that I felt summer was close.  While on the course, we experienced a few rain showers and the humidity was finally kicking up.  The only thing that many of the turf pathologists present could think of was, "This is the start of disease season."

Flooding at the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee and throughout Nashville has been extensive.

Although the Northeastern United States has not had the considerable amount of rain that the people in Nashville have experienced, the late evening thunderstorms followed by temperatures continuing to climb towards 80F are prime for diseases.  Luckily, the nighttime temperatures are still predicted to remain in the 50's throughout the week with the weather channel reporting lows in the upper 40's for Philadelphia by the weekend. Similar nightly temps are predicted for those farther north in the Boston, MA region, but daily highs look like they are going to stay below 70 which should make for some decent growing conditions.

In the field we have been seeing increased cases of brown ring patch (waitea patch), leaf spot in some of the roughs, and continuing problems with anthracnose.  I suspect that we are still a few weeks away from dollar spot for much of the reason, but these conditions are causing many to get an itchy trigger finger with the sprayer.  Since dollar spot is such a problem, I don't blame you, but you should still have some time before the conditions really get going for this disease.  Reports from the Facebook page indicate that many of you are seeing excellent growing conditions and that the recent rains may even have you scrambling to get your roughs mowed to a playable height.  These conditions, however, have been excellent for those of you who timed your aerification right and recovery is now happening at a fast pace.

Other than that, not much chatter is happening around the region as everyone is probably in full swing with their season.  I suspect that it will be at least a month before the calls really start to roll in regarding problems in the field. In the meantime, enjoy the nice growing conditions and relatively healthy turf.