Cooler temperature are here to stay.

It's been a while since I last posted and temperatures during this past month have been highly variable.  Warmer to actual hot temperatures were observed in many parts of the Northeast over the past week, but the forecast for the upcoming 10 days looks like cooler temperatures may be here to stay.

With these cooler temperatures will still come the potential for disease activity.  Over the past couple of weeks, dollar spot has made it's typical late season resurgence and we are probably not out of the water completely as far as this disease goes.  A couple of year's ago when warm temperatures extended into December and January in the Washington, D.C. area, dollar spot activity continued through the end of the calendar year.  However, the only real problems that I have seen showing up at this point are brown ring patch and yellow tuft.  Brown ring patch, which has been described in detail in previous posts (click here to see all related BRP posts) will likely continue with the predicted weather conditions.  Yellow tuft, not really a major problem, has shown up in areas that have poor drainage issues or in areas received heavy rains.  For those of you not familiar with the disease, symptoms are small yellow spots (about the size of a US quarter) which generally appear in areas where water can sit for a period of time.  To diagnose this disease, you can simply "tease" out the yellow tufted plants and look for the excessive tillering of the plant (photo below).

One thing that superintendents further North should really be on the lookout for now is the development of Microdochium patch (aka Fusarium patch).  The cool wet weather we are about to head into for the season is PERFECT for the development of Microdochium patch. There are many fungicides effective for this disease, but the combination of chlorothalonil + iprodione has always been a go-to for many of the superintendents in the New England region where chronic problems with this disease occur. This would also be a great tank-mix for our international readers, particularly those in the UK where this is the primary disease.

As with Megan, I hope to be posting more updates in the coming months.  This will likely focus on some research results from fungicide evaluations conducted this summer and also on the numerous conferences that many of us will be attending between now and March. If you have anything specific that you would like to hear about, please feel free to leave a comment below.  If I have any information relevant to the topic, I will make it the focus of a future post.