104! Again!

I was pretty surprised a short time ago to glance up and see sheets of rain and driving winds outside my window. A storm popped up out of the blue. High today is supposed to be 104. 2-inch soil temps in Manhattan have had some peaks in the 90's. Ugh.

When I got back to town late Wednesday afternoon I found a few turf samples waiting, and a few more rolled in Thursday and Friday. More of the same--steam-cooked roots.


Bacterial Wilt

Wow, you know, there's been so much chatter about bacterial wilt that I don't have much more to contribute. I'll just say that I, too, feel that it is important to be skeptical. If you've missed the BW discussions, scroll back through the blog and be sure to read the comments at the bottom.




Stress tips from USGA
The following link has some comments and tips from USGA agronomists:
http://www.usga.org/news/2010/August/Heat-Straining-Golf-Courses/
Here’s an excerpt, and you can go to the link for the full info:
“It is important that golf course superintendents use defensive golf course maintenance programs. That is, be conservative and pamper the grass. The turfgrass is under intense weather stress, which is compounded by an increase in disease pressure. Everyone should be more concerned about plant health than green speed."


Scientific Conferences

I spent Saturday through Wed at the national plant pathology meeting in Charlotte, NC. What do we do at these conferences?
The main thing is to exchange ideas about research. In human medicine, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work at medical schools, research institutions, etc, before things reach practical day-to-day doctor’s offices. Plant pathology is the same.

Genes and proteins

At the more fundamental level, plant pathologists are researching things like:
*How do bacteria secrete proteins into the plant to allow infection to occur? How do those proteins change gene expression in the plant? How can we develop plants that can defend against these bacterial proteins?
*How do viruses move around within a thrips (insect) before getting transmitted back to the plant? Is there a way to prevent this from happening?
*How can we use DNA sequences to more efficiently identify resistance genes?

“What’s in a name”? A LOT!

Knowing the correct identity of pathogens is also critical. Some pathogens are really hard to tell apart based on what they look like in the microscope, so these days DNA sequence information is often used to sort things out. At the conference, there were sessions about Phytophthora and Pythium, two genera of plant pathogens that are very tricky to identify. There are some poorly described species out there. It’s hard to understand how things grow, spread, cause infection, etc, when there is mis-identification.
In the turf world, we had a whole afternoon dedicated to new (and tricky) diseases of turf caused by organisms in the genus Rhizoctonia. Now that we have better DNA techniques, some things we thought were true in the past are being called into question. The speakers in this excellent symposium were Phil Harmon (FL), Frank Wong (CA), Bruce Martin (SC), and Brandon Horvath (TN), and it was moderated by Jim Kerns (WI).

Weather and plant disease

We all know that weather can be a big factor in plant diseases, but are there ways of precisely quantifying those relationships and using those relationships to make predictions? There were many sessions about that, including a poster by Damon Smith at Oklahoma State who is looking at weather variables and dollar spot.
These are just a few of the types of things that we do.
On top of that, we have committees that do things like:

• work with K-12 educators to help enhance science activities in the classroom
• assist colleagues who are researching important disease problems in developing countries with the hopes of increasing global food security
• work with graduate students to help them find appropriate career tracks
• work with the chemical industry to discuss ways to mitigate fungicide resistance

I always come back feeling somehow rejuvenated but exhausted all at the same time.

Melting turf and the turf pathology meetings

Turf around the country continues to decline and it looks as if there is no break in sight for some time. Many golf courses are having trouble and I even read a Wall Street Journal article today that talked specifically about the problems courses are having. In the article it states that "a handful of high profile courses had already had to close, and if the heat continues, others are likely to follow." It goes on to mention a few of the courses by name which mean to me that the problem is so bad that courses are even trying to hide it at this point. On top of that, the whole issue of this bacterial wilt problem hitting bentgrass is raising all sorts of questions among pathologists. I can't speak for everyone, but the general feelings among those that I spoke with so far this week is that it is a BS diagnosis. I will leave that for later in the week in hopes that someone else will elaborate more.

This week is also the annual meeting of the American Phytopathological Society (APS) meeting in Charlotte. Several of us had the chance to visit a couple of golf courses down here during the trip and I gotta say that the bentgrass really is as bad as many have said on several courses (photo right). The stuff is just melting away. My caution to anyone in this situation down here in NC or throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast is to be cautious about your plans for aerification. This is definitely not a "follow the calendar" year in terms of planning aggressive practices on your greens...that is what happened to many last year and aerification at the wrong time can lead to some quick death. So, be cautious about planning these activities until you get some root growth that can hold it all together.

Summary of a research project.  
Well, I was supposed to summarize a research project that was talked about this week, but the only turf talks so far were on Sunday afternoon at the same time as my meeting for the APS/Plant Management Network Oversite Committee that I serve on.  So I missed all the talks.  I will say that I heard good things about the talks from the various graduate students and I look forward to seeing the posters tonight.  Tomorrow is the big Biology and Management of Rhizoctonia Diseases of Turfgrass, so I am excited to listen to a few of the talks being presented there.  To read some of the abstracts related to turf, you can search here.

Widespread Death & Destruction in Portland? No. Beer and Doughnuts? Por supuesto.

As you already know, many of the plant pathologists in the U.S. were in Portland this last week at the American Phytopathology Society meetings. As mentioned last week - Phil Harmon (Florida), Bruce Martin (Clemson) and Shanna Mazurek (North Dakota State) joined me on a quick tour of Portland Golf Club and Waverly Country Club on Saturday morning before the meeting. With temps in the 100s earlier in the week and a lot of wall to wall annual bluegrass - I was expecting to see nothing but brown up here. Arriving at PDX - I could see lots of dead grass from the air. However, on Saturday morning, I was very (pleasantly) surprised to see awesomely good course conditions at both Portland GC and Waverly CC. Thanks again to Forrest Goodling and John Alexander for the day and Gordon Kiyokawa for setting us up.


Forrest Goodling (Portland GC) - it was so hot recently that the thermometer couldn't even keep up with the 100+ degree weather.


The view of the club house at Portland GC - watching the weather and timely irrigation kept the Poa green during the hot hot heat.


Bruce, Shanna and Phil on the Willamette River - you can see what happened to a lot of grass in the PNW during the heat wave if it wasn't cared for.


John Alexander (Waverley CC) "schooling" Bruce on annual bluegrass and billbug damage.


John Alexander showing off some of the wickedly sloped (and fast) greens at Waverley.

Overall it was a great time seeing the courses and having Forrest and John share with us their experiences and expertise on turfgrass in Portland.

APS Annual Meeting (www.apsnet.org)
As far as the meeting - I have to admit, I did not spend all of my time discussing turf while there. I was mainly wearing one of my other "hats" and focusing on new fungicides and fungicide resistance development in agricultural crops. I am hoping that Megan can give us a summary of some of the cool turf stuff (other than what Jim already mentioned yesterday about the work being done by Steve Kammerer and Phi Harmon) from the meeting.

Two things to note (1) just to make things even more complicated, the name 'Chrysorhiza' is going to be more frequently associated with 'Waitea' and 'brown ring patch' - but for good reason (2) I'm "officialy" going to be working more and more with the EPA in Washington DC on fungicide resistance issues starting in January as part of a fellowship and sabbatical in 2010. More to follow on both in the weeks to come.

Beer and Doughnuts
Portland definitely lived up to its reputation for beer and doughnuts on this trip. With over 100 microbreweries - I tried my best to sample as much of the local brew as possible. One night was even punctuated with a late night run to Voodoo Donuts - I wish I had some better pictures - but unfortunately - all my iphone camera could capture in the dark were images like the one below - but the picture does the situation justice. After a very very very long day of plant pathology talks and a few microbrews - my own world pretty much looked like what was captured by this camera.


Paul Koch (Univ. Wisconsin), Lane, and Damon Smith (Oklahoma State) out on a late night donut run. Missing: Brandon Horvath (Tennesee) holding a big pink box (of doughnuts).

I'm very lucky to be working with such a great group of turf pathologists from around the country, they really do play hard and work harder. Most importantly - it was a great meeting and opportunity to discuss turf disease issues from across the country.

Meanwhile, Back in Cali....
Naveen has definitely been using the bat-phone this week. She reports that the diagnostic lab is getting slammed in Riverside. Anthracnose and heat stress are very common on cool season turf. Root infecting diseases like Kikuyugrass/Bermudagrass decline and soil diseases like fairy ring are also showing up because of the effects of summer stress. I think the blast of heat we had in a few locations is catcing up with us.

Weather wise - it's definitey cooled down this week (no Pythium alert outside of Coachella), but still expect to see the typical summer diseases inland and dollar spot/brown ring patch on the very moderate coastal locations (70s-80s).

Signing off from Top-Pot Doughnuts in Seattle (that's another story),

- Frank

Updates from...Chile?

As I mentioned last week, every four years turfgrass scientists from around the world meet to relay the latest information and research. This year's meeting happens to be located in Santiago, Chile. Before you start complaining about how great it must be to take a "vacation" for work, just know that it is winter here in Chile and the group will be spending most of their time in dark rooms listening to people talk excitedly about turf (does that sound like a vacation?). Having said that, you can bet that I will be enjoying some Chilean wine and decent food while I am hear.

OK, as for the diseases. One of the nice things about being down here with the other pathologists is that I have had the opportunity to ask them what is going on with their regions. I asked a few people from various universities "Is there anything going on in your area that you want to share?" Below are their answers...

John Inguagiato, Ph.D. (University of Connecticut): After a temporary dropoff of dollar spot, the disease has regained momentum and is starting to cause significant damage again. Take-all has been unusually devastating this year due to the cool, wet weather. To help promote recovery John recommends frequent irrigation to the compromised root system. Finally, brown patch has started picking up in the last 10 days and will probably continue due to the expected hot and humid conditions. On a future note, John mentioned that the date of the second UConn Field Day for 2010 will be announced shortly...stay tuned.

Me, (Penn State): From my end, I have seen quite a bit of dollar spot finally taking off in the past week. Type II fairy ring (green rings) has been popping up all over the region as well, but due to the amount of rain the rings are not really developing into Type I (dead circles). Most golf courses have had preventive sprays out for brown patch, but much thought and agonizing has gone into deciding whether applying a Pythium fungicide is necessary. On one hand, we are in late July when the disease is prime for causing trouble. On the other hand, the weather has been anything but typical this year and temperatures have been mild and rain plentiful (at least for most areas). My advice would be to keep an eye on the weather and if night time temperatures look like they are going to increase above 65F in conjunction with extended leaf or thatch wetness (~12 or more hours) then preventive applications should be applied. Pay close attention to watch your "hotspots", since your environmental data is not likely being collected in your courses hottest and most humid locations.

Karl Danneberger (THE Ohio State University): "No, Not really."

Tom Hsiang (University of Guelph, Canada): "I will get back to you."

From the responses above, I guess you could say that from the turf group, blogging is really a goal/hobby of the "younger scientists" (Sorry Tom and Karl, just had to get that jab in there!). That's it from Chile, but keep an eye out for those in the group reporting from the American Phytopathological Society meetings in Portland next week. For me, one "vacation" is enough and I will be heading back to PSU and then off to Pittsburgh and Buffalo for my final rounds of Penn State 2-Year Intern visits!