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

Imprelis Update

This is an important news update from Dupont related to the suspected issues surrounding Imprelis.

Below is from their newly launched website called www.imprelis-facts.com.

"DuPont is fully committed to making sure that our valued customers are satisfied with our products, and to ensuring the responsible stewardship of those products. We regret any injury to trees that our herbicide, Imprelis®, may have caused. We have reached out to lawn care professionals who have reported concerns, and are committed to working with them to promptly and fairly resolve any problems associated with those products.
We have created this website to provide up-to-date information about Imprelis®. We also want to make it easier for lawn care professionals and homeowners to report any problems they have encountered.
If you have a problem, we would like to hear from you. Please go to the “Contact Us” tab of this website to report any problem. In addition, we will be launching a toll-free hotline on Monday, August 1. We will post the number on imprelis-facts.com. Please continue to check the website for updated information."

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.

How do you prepare for the weather?

First, I'd like to welcome Maria Tomaso-Peterson to the blog. She posted the other day and you can catch it here if you missed it.

It's been a while since I have sat down and looked at the weather since I've been traveling, but I got a quick glimpse of what Megan, Jim, and Damon were referring to when I looked at the forecast for this upcoming week. According to weather.com's 5-day forecast, temps are going to peak Thursday through Saturday and everyone from Washington, D.C. along the coast and up to Boston are going to be hit with temperatures in the high 90's to over 100.

As we move into the heart of the summer, we have to watch out for the typical diseases such as brown patch, summer patch, Pythium and the like. After a good lesson that many golf course superintendents had last summer regarding how much their turf can be pushed and perhaps what to do to prepare, I decided to call out to those on twitter to ask the following:

"...how are you preparing for the upcoming weather. 140 or less."  

(for those of you losers not on twitter, '140 or less' refers to the number of characters you can type).  

 

As you can see from some of the posts, people find different things important, but a few things that stood out to me included the importance of irrigation, communication, and maybe a little prayer. Thanks to the following twits for helping (sorry if I missed yours): Greg Shaffer, Mike Jones, Bob Porter, Sam Green, and Ryan Cummings. If you're on twitter, be sure to follow these turfers.

Leave in the comments anything else YOU can add to the list of preparations prior to a major heat wave!

Regional Updates:
USGA Northeastern Update
USGA Mid-Atlantic Update

Weather forecast video

White plants: an unusual symptom.

Today I got a sample in from a golf course superintendent in New York. The sample was thinning and several of the plants had a bleached appearance almost like you would see following the application of Tenacity (they didn't put any of this out BTW). Upon further inspection, there were no signs of any pathogen (no Pythium, bacteria, or any other fungi...I don't check for nematodes so not sure about this). One thing that was interesting was the elongation (not etiolation) of the stembases and stolons. The symptomatic plants had roots being initiated a good inch or so down from where the plants were tillering. These symptoms made me immediately think of the elongation that has been shown to occur with repeated applications of Proxy (Dernoeden's article), but I wouldn't say that this is a cause/effect in this case.

According to the superintendent, the symptoms are definitely occurring on some of the newer introduced varieties (greens were rebuilt in 1993 I believe). Based on the images, it looks like there are weaker clones that have segregated out and more impacted by whatever is going on. I have seen these symptoms on older/weaker clones following aggressive cultural practices, but am not aware of anything like this on new cultivars. I really don't have an answer, but thought that it was an interesting case that was worth posting if for no other reason than to get comments from any other pathologist or golf course superintendents that have experienced this.

Any thoughts from others? Please leave below in the comments or on our facebook page.

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.

Crown hydration, Poa seedheads, and other headaches

Here we are only a few days away from May and we are dealing with all sorts of problems in the Northeast. I just got off the phone with a superintendent in Connecticut who is dealing with some dead grass due to the crazy weather we have had. In his case, a late season freeze following some heavy rains resulted in some serious crown hydration problems. Although I don't have any photos to share (not that he would want them out there), the solution that we both agreed on was a good pummeling. His greens are nearly 100% Poa and we decided that disturbing the soil as much as possible to create a seedbed (there is probably millions of seed in his seedbank) is the best bet to get green turf as soon as possible. We are fortunate that it looks like decent temperatures for growing grass should be here for a while (unless all of the sudden it goes right to summer).

Within the last few weeks, we were also able to rate our snow mold trials. Rather than go into too much detail about this, I have posted our final report and a pdf of the individual treatment images in my dropbox file (link) . Feel free to download them, but they won't be up there forever. Instead the report will be moved to the Penn State site once we can get it uploaded. Other than recovery from the typical winter problems, I have already started hearing rumblings about the following diseases being active: anthracnose, brown ring patch, fairy ring, yellow patch (aka., cool temperature brown patch), microdochium patch, and probably others that I forgot to mention.

What most people have on their mind right now is 1) the success of the Poa seedhead programs and 2) the start if they haven't already started of the early season dollar spot treatments. Due to weather problems, we didn't get our early season trials out until yesterday, but our seedhead trials (applied at various timings between 200 and 500 GDD) have all gone out already. We are just now starting to see some seedheads, but ratings probably won't tell us much until this week or next. If you have any thoughts or input on what you are seeing or how your Poa seedhead treatments worked out for you, please pass them along in the comments or on the Turf Diseases Facebook Page.

Finally, if you were wondering about my South Africa post, I just got my computer back last week and haven't had a chance to upload my pics. I hope to get to them this week so the post can hit this weekend. Good thing that Dr. Woods gave us a great International Disease Post last weekend.

Plenty of snow mold in the Northeast

View of St. Francis Links and St. Francis Bay in South Africa

Things have been very hectic around here so I have not had much of a chance to post anything in a while. Following a week long trip to South Africa (more on this next weekend), I fired up the old (actually it is only a few months old) computer to have it completely crash on me. That was about 10 days ago and I have yet to get it back. Shouldn't there be some sort of insurance on these things for lost work time. If I were running a business and relying on a single computer (luckily I have a backup) then I would be totally screwed.

Gray snow mold pressure in 2011 fungicide trials

Anyway, since coming back I have been busy putting research protocols together and also wrapping up research studies from last year. In particular, I was able to drive up to Yahnundasis Golf Club located near Utica, NY to rate my snow mold trials from last fall. Depending on your perspective this was a great year for snow mold and disease pressure was upwards of 80% in select plots. Our data is kind of perplexing as PCNB didn't really do all that much. While some plots didn't look all that good, several treatments resulted in excellent control with some even providing 100% control. This report should be up on the Penn State website relatively soon (relative in academia means by June).

Most of us are now in recovery from any problems, but I have seen several courses this year that are greening up pretty nicely and look great. It's already turning into a strange year. We have had unseasonably cold weather with individual days of extremely warm temps. Today in State College, the weather is about 75F while tomorrow is going to peak at 51F. Despite this fluctuation, our GDD at Penn State hit 289 yesterday and probably picked up several more today. Therefore at least according to the GDD we are right in the early stages of Poa seedhead control. We have a study at the Penn State Golf Course now looking at GDD timings for various products and a new experimental product. Hopefully we can get a better handle on what works in terms of timing for our region. For some reason, the GDD timing used in Michigan as part of Ron Calhoun's program doesn't seem to work well here...at least we haven't been able to dial it in. I hope to continue to put out these trials to figure out the best timing and products for our region...any feedback that you can provide regarding what works for you would be great!  If you want to learn more about Ron's GDD Tracker site, I encourage you to visit it at www.gddtracker.net. It is a great site and a valuable resource for those in his region.

Poa annua management strategies (Part 2)

Last week I introduced the topic of annual bluegrass management practices that are gaining momentum in the United States and other parts of the world. While these practices have been met with some controversy, they have also made us as researchers spend a little more time investigating the implications of these practices for golf course superintendents.

One program that has emerged among many superintendents (many with a strong voice on twitter including @nccturf, @MinikahdaTurf, among others) is the incorporation of various management techniques that seek to favor the bentgrass over the weaker Poa annua spp. While there is much variation in the programs and none are identically alike, a general overview of some of the practices incorporated into the program were discussed in last week's post.

As I also mentioned in last week's post, those of you managing Poa (regardless of your management goals) usually have a very vocal and firm belief of why your program(s) works. As an academic, I try not to jump on anecdotal claims, but do like that they can serve as a catalyst that drives research. For me, it's about trying to figure what works and what doesn't (again based on research) and then trying to fine tune those results into programs that are repeatable across a variety of regions and under different management and environmental situations. So, in 2010 we initiated several studies looking at the management and suppression of Poa under golf course putting green conditions.

Kyung Han assessing Poa populations

Four studies were initiated investigating the interactions between and among the following variables: 1) low and normal/high seasonal nitrogen rates (low and high are about 0.5 and 2.2-3.0 lbs N/1000 sq ft/year); 2) plant growth regulators (none, Primo, and Cutless); and 3) Ferrous sulfate rates (0.0, 0.25, and 1.0 lb/1000 sq ft every 3 weeks).  There are a lot more details to the trials, but since this is only the first year and we have another full year of the study (and hopefully several years more, funding pending) I will save the details for the publication. Other common factors in the study include: routine topdressing, no disturbance, routine venting with solid tines, minimum irrigation where possible, no phosphorous applications, pesticides only where needed, and probably others that I am forgetting. The studies were setup as a 2x3 or 2x3x3 factorial with four replications.

Trials were initiated on a research putting green at the Joseph Valentine Turfgrass Research Center to investigate the interaction of N rates, PGRs, and Fe rates on annual bluegrass populations on a putting green.

So as not to bore everyone with a ton of data, I have included one slide showing results of the 3-way factorial study which included all factors. Data shown is only a single date and it should be pointed out that tremendous seasonal variation in Poa annua was observed between summer and fall timings. Total Poa was estimated at 20 to 25% throughout the area at the beginning of the study and here are the results after the first 5-6 months of initiating the first treatments.

Poa annua populations following the seasonal application of various N rates, Fe rates, and PGRs. Data were collected monthly, but peak annual bluegrass ratings taken in October 2010 are shown here.

Now there is a lot of data to be analyzed and interpretation will definitely be reserved for AFTER we have two full years of data, but here are the general summaries that I have based on this first year:

1. Nitrogen rate (0.5 vs. 2.2 lbs N/year) appeared to have an slight impact on Poa annua populations with lower N resulting in lower % Poa in October.
2. PGRs had the greatest impact with Cutless treated plots (as expected) reducing Poa the greatest. Interestingly, the Primo-treated plots appeared to reduce populations when comparing low to high N plots, but these data need to be subjected to contrasts which have not yet been done to determine the significance of this effect.
3. Ferrous sulfate so far does not appear to have any impact on the Poa annua populations. Many utilizing this program are suggesting that these applications are important to reducing Poa, but based on this first year data it does not seem to have much impact. Having said this, the turf color/quality in plots receiving low N levels started to decline and in plots where Fe was applied it did appear to help improve the overall color...although quality was still a little suspect.

So, this is the first look into the data that we have from the first year of our Poa management study. There are probably a lot of questions about some of the details of the study, but I am leaving that for another time as I hope to continue this work for several years.

The main questions that I have regarding the long term impact of this study will be the assessment of organic matter buildup, changes to the pH (of which we have seen none yet), and the development of side problems such as black layer due to the sulfates. I have also been told that this program will result in a substantial reduction in disease severity and therefore a reduction in the overall use of pesticides. These will all be things that we look at as the study progresses this year and beyond. In addition to these studies, we will be looking at more chemical-based means of suppressing the weed as well...we can't rely on just one method and most likely it will take a combination of chemicals (or "poisons" as our friend "Poa annua" on facebook calls them) and sound management practices to get Poa populations where you want them.

Acknowledgements

As many of you know, funding for these research projects can be expensive. This research could not be possible without the support of The Penn State College of Agriculture and Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, The Center for Turfgrass Science, The Pennsylvania Turfgrass Council, SePro, and the USGA.

Lot's of talk about Poa this spring

Winter damage can be a big problem in Poa.

While some golf course superintendents are still seeing the last remaining traces of snow on their turf, most are starting to assess the impact of winter and potential damage. With the predominance of Poa annua as the primary species on many golf courses throughout the region, the potential for winter damage is always high and it appears that the winter of 2010/2011 may be as damaging as that in the summer of "the year that shall not be spoken". According to a recent Northeast Regional update from the USGA's Adam Moeller, it appears that many golf courses have "discovered moderate to severe winter damage on putting greens."

So much of the discussion on Facebook and Twitter has shifted to assessing the damage and fixing it.  In cases where damage was not observed the focus has been on seedhead suppression. The bottom line for those managing turf in the Northeast, the focus surrounds the suppression and/or management of Poa annua.

Regardless of whether you want to manage or suppress Poa, you probably feel pretty strongly about your beliefs!

While this has always been a major interest of mine, the shift to Penn State has given me the opportunity to focus more research efforts on managing this species on golf courses. For those not familiar with our state, Pennsylvania is made up of two major factions: those in the western portion of the state (e.g., Pittsburgh) love their Poa and believe it is the premier species for putting quality while those on the eastern side of the state (e.g., Philadelphia) generally consider this a weed problem and go to great lengths to suppress it (there are always exceptions to the rule, so don't you superintendents in Pittsburgh trying to control Poa yell at me telling me that I am wrong). That leaves me and others at the University trying to figure the best management practices for both those that want to get rid of it and those that want to promote it. And while there are many people that claim to know how to accomplish this, a lot of research-based information is still needed to determine best management practices that meet your specific needs (whatever your needs may be).

So over the next two weeks, I will try to provide some insight into what is generally known about managing/suppressing Poa in our region and provide some insight into research that we have initiated to further assess management options.

Here is a list of what is generally known or believed about Poa management:

Trimmit-treated stand of bent/Poa

PGRs
Primo and Trimmit/Cutless are the three most common growth regulators applied to turf during the season. Primo is believed to have little impact on Poa (other than making it stronger), while Trimmit and Cutless have been show to favor the growth of bentgrass over annual bluegrass when used a repeated application program.

Herbicides
There has been no silver bullet herbicide for managing annual bluegrass. Preemergent herbicides effective against Poa are generally not recommended for use on putting green turf. Postemergent herbicides such as Prograss and Velocity have been used with varying results, but again are not labeled for use on putting greens. Various experimental products (cumyluron, methiozolin, others) are currently being evaluated in the United States and have shown great promise. For example, methiozolin is currently labeled for putting green turf in Korea and has excellent efficacy in preliminary studies, but more studies looking at the use of this product are needed.

Coring can create an ideal Poa seedbed

Cultural practices
This is where we get into the relatively ongoing controversy of management programs. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of programs that involve minimal disturbance (no hollow tine aerification or deep vertical mowing), low nitrogen and phosphorous programs, high ferrous sulfate (and other sulfates) applications, and others. Unfortunately, many of these recommendations are based on "theory" and have not be thoroughly evaluated in controlled research environments.

The general feeling regarding cultural practices for suppressing Poa as I understand it are:

1. Low nitrogen will favor the bentgrass over the annual bluegrass and in turn result in less accumulation of organic matter. ADDED CONTENT: (Low P will also favor bent...thanks Dr. Koski for pointing this out)
2. Ammonium sulfate as a primary N source will result in acidification and therefore further favor bentgrass.
3. Fe, Mg, and Mn sulfate will help in an acidification of the foliage (not sure where this came from) and therefore favor bentgrass AND help to offset color deficiencies in low N programs.
4. Core aerification surrounding times when annual bluegrass germination is optimal should in general be avoided. Many of these new Poa management programs dictate that greens be vented often, but that any disruption should be avoided.
5. To further help dilute the potential build-up of organic matter, frequent topdressing is generally recommended to encourage the development of a manageable "mat" layer rather than a puffy "thatch" layer.
6. I have no idea where this fits into the program, but many seeking to reduce Poa populations are lowering their mowing heights. This seems counter intuitive to me, but that's what I'm seeing and hearing.
7. As would be expected, irrigation is minimized to further stress the Poa and favor bent. In this entire program, this one seems like a no-brainer to me and the diligent and thrifty use of water is in general a good idea for limiting Poa as well as associated turf diseases.
8. There are probably other things that I have left out, but this post is already getting too long...add your "#8" in the comments or on Facebook.

So now you have a general overview of some of the techniques that superintendents and greenkeepers are using around the United States and around the world. Please feel free to add to the comments any additional positive or negatives you see with these management practices. Some of them are controversial to say the least and I have seen people swear by all or a selection of these practices to help "favor the strong species while eliminating the weak" and I have seen others who after several years on the program(s) lose a significant amount of turf.

Next week, I will share some preliminary results of our modified version of the program above which investigates the interaction of nitrogen rates, ferrous sulfate rates, and plant growth regulators on Poa annua populations.

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

Practical Guide to Turfgrass Fungicides (new book)

The arrival of Dr. Latin's new fungicide book for the turfgrass industry has been highly anticipated and was basically unveiled at the Golf Industry Show last week. I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the book from the bookstore before copies ran out and even more fortunate to have Dr. Latin sign a copy (although I interrupted an interview he was having with a potential grad student to get it). As with any profession, continued education is a must and this is definitely one book that you want to have on your shelf. You can purchase your copy at the APS website. The book is currently on sale for $119.95 and although it's not cheap, someone has to support Dr. Latin's golf habit it is well worth the price.


Here is some information about the book from the American Phytopathological Society (the book's publisher):

Contents

• Turf Fungicide Fundamentals
• Modes of Action of Fungicides
• Fungicide Resistance
• Factors That Influence Fungicide Performance
• Biofungicides, Phosphonates, and Post-Patent Products
• Fungicide Interactions
• Scheduling Fungicides for Turf Disease Control
• Fungicide Regulation
• Interpreting Fungicide Performance Research
• Turf Disease Characteristics and Control
• Turf Fungicide Profiles
• Index

Delivers Proven Strategies for Turf Fungicide Management

• Provides turf managers with a sound foundation and understanding of how and why fungicides work by explaining how they move within the plant (phytomobility) and how they stop fungal growth (mode of action)
• Explains how to integrate disease-control chemicals with essential management practices and shows how a variety of plant, pathogen, and environmental factors can influence fungicide performance.
• Describes different approaches to scheduling fungicide applications—based on damage thresholds, days between sprays, and environmental conditions—explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and enabling development of effective strategies and tactics for disease control.
• Supplies a single source for accurate, current descriptions and control recommendations for more than two dozen damaging turf diseases caused by fungi.
• Separates anecdotal fungicide selection information from valid research results and explains how to interpret research reports using examples describing the effectiveness of fungicide products.

To the right is my copy signed by the Great Doctor!

Cold throughout the Northeast

I just returned from a trip to the British International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) meeting in Harrogate, England and can say that I was unpleasantly surprised by the extreme cold temperatures upon my return. I never thought that I would have to go all the way to the UK in the winter for better weather.

Back in the Northeastern United States, snow fell throughout much of the area while I was gone and now we are in the midst of another potential major snow storm starting this week and lasting for a few days. Not that anyone puts any faith in the weather reporters, but it looks as though we are getting more significant accumulation.

Ice forming on annual bluegrass putting greens and lasting for an extended period of time can spell "death" to the Poa. (Photo courtesy of Iestyn Jones of Norway)

One of the things that is a concern for golf course superintendents is the survival of their annual bluegrass under the snow when cover is expected for a extended period of time. While this snow cover is probably looked at as a great thing considered the extremely low temperatures throughout the region, the presence of ice under the accumulated snow may be a big problem for some. Over in England, I gave a talk on preparing for and recovering from winter damage (a topic that I am first to admit not an expert in AND thanks to Michelle DaCosta of UMASS for sending some slides of her own). However, during my preparation I pulled a lot of useful information about winter damage. In some of the literature, it appeared clear that fewer days of ice cover were needed to cause winter injury to annual bluegrass relative to other common species such as creeping bentgrass. Some of the data suggested 45-60 days of ice cover was a problem, while others reported damage in as few as 15 days of cover.

Part of the problem with giving a definitive length of time required for death to occur has to do with the conditions prior to the ice cover. If plants were given sufficient time to harden off during the progressively colder temperatures in the fall, the plants seemed to hold up better for a longer period of time. Having said that, in my experience in the Northeast and dealing with superintendents in other areas, much of the damage to the Poa actually occurs in the spring when snow melts, forms puddles and then refreezes on ground that not frozen. In these instances, temperatures can quickly decrease and plants can die quickly.

The bottom line for those of you concerned about the potential damage, it is important to monitor your snow cover to make sure that ice has not formed underneath. If ice has formed, you should track the time period that it covers the turf and potentially be prepared to remove ice that has been in place for several weeks. In most cases in the Northeast, this is not a problem. For those who are concerned in the spring, it is important to pull samples early and conduct a glasshouse test to see if your turf is actually going to grow once the weather improves. Simply pulling a sample and putting on your windowsill is often sufficient to determine plant health. Additionally, getting water off of the surface in the spring via squegeeing or pumping (if severe) will be another important component of preventing additional damage.

We are a long way from the end of winter, but it's never too late to start forming your plan for dealing with potential problems.

One last recap of 2010

from www.techdigest.tv

For those of you that have come to know me on this site, you probably also know that I am nuts. This is the kind of crap that keeps me busy during my insomnia in the middle of the night. Although this information is probably useful for web developers to make sure that the site shows up similarly across different platforms, I don't really have that much interest in the information. BUT, I do like the way that Google Analytics allows us to visualize the information. Without further adieu, here are the top browsers used to surf the Turf Disease Blog!

#7-10 Blackberry Phones
#6 Opera
#5 Mozilla Compatible Agent
#4 Chrome
#3 Safari
#2 Firefox (my personal choice)
#1 Internet Explorer

Check out the use during the year in this video!

Top 10 Visits by Country

As mentioned earlier in the week, we had visitors from 130 different countries or territories. While the majority by a long shot are from the United States, here is a round up of the top 10 visits by country in 2010:

#1 United States

#2 Canada 

#3 United Kingdom

#4 Thailand 

#5 Australia

#6 Japan

#7 Turkey

#8 Ireland

#9 Germany 

#10 South Korea

Top 5 Blog Posts of 2010

There's no doubt about it, 2010 was a tough year for golf course superintendents. Here's a look back and what was most important or relevant to you from our site last year.

#1 Bacterial wilt of bentgrass...
This was the posting of a letter from Dr. Mitkowski of the University of Rhode Island in which he talks about his recent finding of bacterial wilt in bentgrass. Definitely a hot (and controversial) topic in 2010.

#2 Summer fungicide programs for cool-season putting greens
There is no doubt that those growing bentgrass in the Southeast United States had their hands full this summer. In this post, Dr. Tredway shares some early (June) information about planning your summer fungicide programs with special mention to specific diseases including: Pythium blight, Pythium root rot, Pythium root dysfunction, anthracnose, fairy ring, nematodes and brown patch.

#3 Bacterial Wilt, no not? That is the question.
Dr. Wong posts a September blog about recent reports of dying annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass greens. He links to a few other posts and suggests that although bacterial wilt may be the cause, getting conditions required for the disease in Southern California would be "like coordinating a trainwreck."

#4 Beware of the DMI fungicides
 In another post by Dr. Tredway, he warns of the potential issues with using the DMI fungicides during the summer months. This post was on June 16, so hopefully you heeded his warning and backed off of these products during the intense summer we had. If you didn't then you likely played right into the hands of Pat O'Brien and went through or are planning a bermudagrass conversion!

#5 The Turf Diseases Image Gallery
Did you even know that the Turf Diseases blog had an image gallery for the various common diseases that you may see at your golf course. Hosted on flickr and utilizing images from Dr. Tredway and me, the gallery serves as a visual tool to help diagnose your turf diseases problems or even as a photo collection for you to build powerpoint presentations for your club (giving full credit to the photographers of course).

Top 10 Referrers of 2010

While we would love to think that all of you have us booked marked or saved as your browser's homepage, we definitely understand and appreciate the fact that many of you find us by clicking on links from referring sites. We want to recognize those sites for providing content or links that got your to us. So to steal the thunder from David Letterman, here is our:



 Why they drove visitors to our site-list.

No. 10: It was either you or Voodoo Donuts.

(University of California Riverside's Turf Pathology Site)

No. 9: Wait, we did what?

(Kansas State Turf)

No. 8: สิ่งที่เราควรทำอย่างไร

(Asian Turfgrass Center Blog)

No. 7: I guess the words "disease" and "porn" are closely related.
(Google images)

No. 6: Because we don't update during our insomnia.
(Golf Course Industry) 

No. 5: Even we're tired of listening to Kaminski.

(Penn State Turfgrass)

No. 4: @turfdiseases needed more followers.
(Twitter)

No. 3: We ran out of money to produce more Frank Rossi videos.
(TurfNet)

No. 2: This is what we do, dumbass.
(Google)

...and the number 1 reason our referrers said they drove traffic to our site...

No. 1: Because we're trying to drive the old people from our own site.
(Facebook)

Turf Diseases 2011 Recap

Now that 2010 season is finally over, it is time for us here at Turf Diseases to recap some of the highlights from the past year. This week I will bring you some "Top Lists" for the website. I am happy to say that we have branched out beyond just what happens here in the United States. To the right you can see that although our focus audience is here in the states, we are reached 130 countries/territories in 2010.


Over 57,000 visitors (over 24,000 unique visitors) frequented the site last year (figure below). It was clear that there were a few hot spots in terms of times to visit. Needless to say it is obvious that things were tough in July and August and this caused many of you to I assume check out what was happening around your region and with other golf course superintendents as well.

The 2010 Top 10 List...
Some other things of note coming up this week include my version of Letterman's Top 10 for the following categories:

Top referrers to the website in 2010 (some of you made the list!)
Top Posts of 2010 (based on your visits)
Top Visits by Country (see how your country stacks up)

Special Turf Nerd Post (you could probably do without seeing this one)

What the future holds...

The 2010 season marked the first full year of our existence and we couldn't be more happy with the results. In fact, the success of this little blog site has inspired me to expand in 2011 with the hopes of something big by 2012 (sponsors beware). If you have any ideas on how we can improve the site (big or small), please feel free to share it with us in the comments below!

6 Things I Learned in 2010

This is more of a personal post about what I learned this year in terms of things that I would consider myself to be interested in. This includes photography, social media, insomnia, and let’s not forget turf diseases.

Social Media is Not the Future, It’s the Now

Although I have been using various social media resources for a few years now, I am still amazed at how many people still fight it as if it were going to go away. While there remains the issue of professionalism while using these social networks, it is clear that they are here to stay. If you don’t believe me, check out who Time Magazine named “Person of the Year 2010".

kbpictures.com

Sleep is Overrated 

For those of you who read the article in Golf Course Industry, you probably now know that I have issues sleeping. For the last 4 to 5 years I have generally gotten up and spent 3 hours or so learning new social media, video and photo editing, html, and other things that I wouldn't normally have time for during the day. For the last month, I have been able to sleep through the night with little problem. My conclusion? I would rather be up at night!

Completing a Project365 Isn't Easy

A Project365 is essentially a photo project that you do on your own to see if you can take 1 photo per day for an entire year. In 2010, I set out to complete this project as a way to better understand the settings and use of my camera. Well, the excitement quickly turned into a chore and I ended up failing after 263 days (continued from 2009). I plan on trying again beginning in 2011.

 You Can Never Prepare For Some Things

 No photo to share for this one...it was just too ugly to post!

The last year was probably one of the most difficult on record for golf course superintendents in a LONG time. As turf pathologists, we like to think that we can help to prepare turf managers for the problems that may come during the summer. In my opinion, this year proved that sometimes you can prepare all you want, but that may not make much of a difference. This was particularly true for those growing bentgrass in the mid-Atlantic and hot and humid Southeast. I saw more dead turf this year than I can remember. Hopefully next summer will be better.

 I LOVE to Travel

Attendees to the International Turfgrass Society conference in France, 2010.

This year I had the opportunity to travel more than I had ever in the past. Presentations, Conferences, Trade Shows, etc. took me all around the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, South Africa, France and other places. Despite having some hiccups along the way (getting stuck in Paris due to the Volcanic Ash), it gave me the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends in the turfgrass business. Although the world is relatively large, the commonalities among turfgrass managers worldwide makes our group a small and personable one. 

"Turf Diseases" Changed The Way We Communicate

 

Although the Turf Disease Blog was launched in May of 2009, it wasn't until 2010 that it really took off. This site, comprised of 5 pathologists and a few other guests, was meant to be a way to share timely information for those in the golf course industry. What started out with humble ideas is slowly progressing into much more. Last year, we had over 100,000 page views and visits from people in more than 120 countries. We now have our own website (www.turfdiseases.org) and will continue to expand on the project in 2011. The last month has given me a lot of time to think of the direction that I want to go with the site and I think that over the next year we are going to roll out some nice additions that will make the information even more useful.

I can't thank everyone enough for all of the feedback (positive and negative) that we have gotten over the last year. The blog has caused me to reexamine many things in my research, teaching and education program and has given me many opportunities and new ideas for future work. I look forward to continuing the evolution of the site in the coming months and years. 

Enjoy the Holiday season and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!