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).