Top Five Diseases of Warm Season Turf at the 2011 GCSAA Education Conference

What's the Biggest Problem for Warm Season Turf?


Dr. Phil talkin' about Diseases on Monday

Last Monday, Phil Harmon, Megan and I got to teach the Management of Diseases of Warm Season Turfgrasses here in Orlando.

It was out third time doing it together and I think each time we’re getting better. I think Bruce Martin from Clemson has stopped checking up on us to make sure that we’re doing the class right, which is good, but we sure do miss the opportunity to put Bruce on the spot! Bruce taught the class previously for >10 years at GCSAA, and it took three of us to replace one of him!

This year we had about 45 students with Florida heavily represented in the group. We had some visitors from Central America and as far away as Australia, but most of the guys came to talk about bermudagrass and bermudagrass diseases in the southeastern U.S.

A survey taken during the class showed the disease issues that superintendents are most concerned with for warm season turf (by # of mentions):
1. Fairy Ring (22)
2. Rhizoctonia zeae aka mini-ring (18)
3. Large Patch (15)
4. Gaeumannomyces Decline (11)
5. Bipolaris Leaf Spot/Melting out (7)

Surprised?

We’ll follow up in the next few weeks on these diseases and what’s the best management strategies for each of them.

Until next week, signing off from the right coast....