Heat Wave Forecasted for Next Week

We have seen relatively few disease issues in the TDL the past month or so. Throughout Upper Midwest temperatures have been warm, but we have also been quite dry. However the forecast for next week is very different. Highs for next week will been in the low to mid-ninties, more importantly night time temperatures will exceed 72 for most of next week. I included a 7-day forecast from NBC 15 here in Madison, but areas west and south of us will likely experience even hotter temperatures. I know that doesn't compare with the excruciating heat experienced by those in the Southeast and Central US, but the forecast is significant for the Upper Midwest. Especially considering that many courses have substantial Poa annua populations.

IF YOU haven't done so already, this weekend or early next week is a great time to protect your plants against brown patch and Pythium blight. Environmental conditions next week will be ripe for these two diseases. Moreover, anthracnose, dollar spot, summer patch and leaf spot could also flare up depending on where you are with fungicide applications. I mention leaf spot because we have been dealing with a Bipolaris leaf spot in the Midwest for two or three years that does not respond well to applications of iprodione. This disease also remains active throughout the summer months and has been problematic primarily for older golf courses. The disease tends to be more severe on certain clones of older creeping bentgrass fairways causing a "splotchy" reddish appearance to fairways. It does not manifest into distinct symptom. An image of typical stand symptoms is below.

Last year we initiated a fungicide trial at a course in Wisconsin to investigate chemical control options and found that Heritage TL, Insignia and a tank mixture of Chipco 26GT and Daconil Ultrex suppressed symptoms when compared to the non-treated control. Chipco 26GT by itself did not suppress the symptoms, indicating that Daconil Ultrex was more effective in controlling this disease. Note that I use the word suppress we have not been able to prevent the development of this disease, only suppress the symptoms. Here is the report from last year's trial. This has been a difficult disease to work with because it only seems to affect certain clones. Thus it took some time to figure out how to rate it.

Some other things to consider for next week: limit mowing by alternating mowing and rolling, skip clean-up passes, raise the mowing height and absolutely avoid applications of DMI fungicides to putting greens.

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.

Civitas Update....By Popular Demand

First, my apologies for the tardiness of this post. The pre-Thanksgiving travel crunch got the best of me last week, and of course I spent the entire weekend watching football and hockey, so I am just now getting caught up! Several people have asked what happened to the Civitas update, so here it is:

Civitas is a new product for disease and insect control in turfgrasses that was developed by Suncor, formerly known as PetroCanada. The active ingredient is mineral oil, otherwise known as 'horticultural oil', which has been used for management of plant pests for many years. It has just never been used in turf because of issues with phytotoxicity. However, Suncor developed a pigment product, called Harmonizer, that is mixed with Civitas to reduce the potential for phytotoxicity. The advantage of mineral oil as a fungicide is that it has very low environmental impacts due to its low toxicity and rapid breakdown in the environment.

Because it contains oil and pigment, Civitas has a very noticeable effect on the color and appearance of the turf. The Harmonizer pigment, depending on the application rate, is a very dark green, similar to that provided by an application of Triton Flo or Tartan. Some people have complained that transfer of the pigment to shoes and clothing has been a problem, but I haven't rolled around on our research plots yet to see how big of a problem that is.

The mineral oil component of Civitas also gives the turf a distinct greasy appearance, very similar to that caused by an application of a wetting agent like Cascade. This greasy appearance is most evident in the morning and persists for several days to a week after application. Because of these unique characteristics of Civitas, I suggest that people try it out on a nursery green or putting green before treating the whole course with it.

We've been evaluating Civitas for control of various turf diseases for three years now. For a summary of our previous results, please see my post from last year entitled Civitas shows promise for control of dollar spot and brown patch. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom provided by Wakar Uddin, Bruce Clarke, and others regarding their experiences with Civitas.

We continue to see similar results against dollar spot and brown patch in our trials. However, this year we ran into serious problems with phytotoxicity when Civitas and Harmonizer was tank-mixed with Daconil and Banner Maxx. The injury appeared very quickly after the first application in May and became more severe as time went on. As you can see in the graph to the left, it is also interesting to note that half rates of the mixture components did not reduce the amount of phytotoxicity observed. Based on this result, we definitely recommend that Civitas and Harmonizer should not be mixed with Daconil and Banner, or with other fungicides until we have the opportunity to evaluate more mixtures for their safety.

We haven't seen significant phytotoxicity from applications of Civitas and Harmonizer alone in our trials, but some users have reported injury during times of severe stress, with high temperatures consistently above 90F. It makes sense that it could create problems to coat the turf leaves in oil under these types of conditions.

To summarize, Civitas has good activity against several important turf diseases like dollar spot, brown patch, anthracnose, and leaf spot diseases. Although it does not provide acceptable control alone in most cases, my opinion is that it could be useful as part of a disease control program. Civitas and Harmonizer should not be mixed with other fungicides or applied to severely stressed turf, or severe injury could result. However, if you are interested in using products that pose less risk to environment, then Civitas is a good choice.

How big of a turf nerd do you have to be...

...to name Turf Diseases as the Super Blog of the Month?  Well, apparently the folks at Golf Course Industry are just nerdy enough and I love it! Pat Jones, Publisher/Editorial Director of GCI Magazine, relayed the good news today (via Facebook).  Turf Diseases has been named the Super Blog of the Month and will be featured for the entire month on their blogroll. So I guess there is no where to go but down from here.

So as for the updates about diseases.  Today I saw some interesting things at the research facility.  Over the weekend Fairy Ring (Type II and Type III) started to appear throughout much of the putting surface.  One thing that particularly stood out was the presence of mushrooms that only Dr. Fidanza could really love in a PGR study.  The purpose of the study is to evaluate the impact of the post inhibition growth stimulation (PIGS) effect rebound effect on bentgrass recovery following aerification once certain PGRs start to wear off .  In plots that had received a second application of paclobutrazol, mushrooms were abundant.  I have seen this with other fungicide studies in the past, but it always make me wonder about the crazy screwed up things that can occur with the side effects of certain cultural and chemical practices.

Aside from that, I have received samples from a few locations and found really crappy root systems compromised roots, Wong Patch brown ring patch, dollar spot, and anthracnose.  I was also traveling through Ohio and Pittsburgh last week and although most diseases seemed to be limited, it appeared that leaf spot was starting to rage in roughs with perennial ryegrass. At one course in the Pittsburgh area, it was totally freakin awesome clear to see the damage in an area of sod that had some highly susceptible cultivar of perennial ryegrass (image below).  The interesting part about this was that the sod had been laid about 5 years ago and this was the first time that leaf spot had shown up so impressively.

Challenge for the Month...1000 Fans on Facebook!

Today I was listening to our local radio station (The Zoo Crew on B94.5).  The DJ was telling a story about how he was drunk off his... "inebriated" at a local bar and gave his number (although he wrote it down wrong so I guess the term fit) to his hot waitress who I met during a dinner at the same establishment with Stan Zontek last year (and she is HOT).  They had her in to tell the story of how she texted him that night only to find out that the number he gave her was that of some random girl whose boyfriend then thought that she was getting random messages from another guy. Oh the drama.  ANYWAY, the purpose of this was that they started a facebook page and were trying to get 500 fans over the weekend and now their goal is 2500 fans.  I don't have a radio station to shout it out to, but I now challenge all of you to help us get the Turf Disease Facebook Fanpage to 1000 fans by the end of the month.  Spread the word and show the love or I am calling it quits with this damn thing!

Leaf spot, Waitea, and growth...

Today I attended Rutger's Annual Turfgrass Research Tournament at Fiddler's Elbow in Northern New Jersey (Image courtesy hunter-pr.com).  The event was again a great one which raises a lot of money to support ongoing research projects.  Congratulations to Bruce Clarke and all of the faculty and staff for putting together a great event.  Although the event was great, the purpose of me bringing this up was that this was the first time that I felt summer was close.  While on the course, we experienced a few rain showers and the humidity was finally kicking up.  The only thing that many of the turf pathologists present could think of was, "This is the start of disease season."

Flooding at the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee and throughout Nashville has been extensive.

Although the Northeastern United States has not had the considerable amount of rain that the people in Nashville have experienced, the late evening thunderstorms followed by temperatures continuing to climb towards 80F are prime for diseases.  Luckily, the nighttime temperatures are still predicted to remain in the 50's throughout the week with the weather channel reporting lows in the upper 40's for Philadelphia by the weekend. Similar nightly temps are predicted for those farther north in the Boston, MA region, but daily highs look like they are going to stay below 70 which should make for some decent growing conditions.

In the field we have been seeing increased cases of brown ring patch (waitea patch), leaf spot in some of the roughs, and continuing problems with anthracnose.  I suspect that we are still a few weeks away from dollar spot for much of the reason, but these conditions are causing many to get an itchy trigger finger with the sprayer.  Since dollar spot is such a problem, I don't blame you, but you should still have some time before the conditions really get going for this disease.  Reports from the Facebook page indicate that many of you are seeing excellent growing conditions and that the recent rains may even have you scrambling to get your roughs mowed to a playable height.  These conditions, however, have been excellent for those of you who timed your aerification right and recovery is now happening at a fast pace.

Other than that, not much chatter is happening around the region as everyone is probably in full swing with their season.  I suspect that it will be at least a month before the calls really start to roll in regarding problems in the field. In the meantime, enjoy the nice growing conditions and relatively healthy turf.

Red Leaf Spot Active...

Disease activity has basically gotten to a point of boredom for many of us who like to see new and exciting diseases. Dollar spot continues to be the number one problem in the Northeastern United States and this is not much of a departure from the past few weeks or so. Temperatures are finally getting cooler at night, but the forecast for some areas have temperatures reaching into the 80's again this week.

Much of the effort in terms of turfgrass management has shifted towards the necessary cultural practices needed to ensure healthy turf heading into the winter and also coming out of spring. Snow mold applications are still a couple of months away, but superintendents would be wise to check out some of the posts from Dr. Kerns in the Midwest region where he experiences some of the highest snow mold pressures around.

For me, last week was fairly exciting (although not exciting enough to come up with another PlayTurf cover) as some of our plots unexpectedly developed red leaf spot. While at Maryland, we heard a lot of buzz from superintendents in the field who felt that they were dealing with red leaf spot. However, upon further inspection we almost always found the disease to be late cases of Microdochium patch (aka, Pink snow mold or Fusarium patch) occuring during overcast weather. This caused some controversy to the point of almost having a manuscript rejected because the editors suggested that we did not probably identify Microdochium patch (the disease was rated in the first week of June in Maryland...which was highly unusual). I assured the editors that I was a major advocate of the cereal Lucky Charms and could easily distinguish my "crescent moon shapes" (typical of Microdochium) from that of a cigar (typical shape of the Dreschlera genus that causes red leaf spot).

Anyway, the real first time that I even saw red leaf spot was at the research plots at my first University of Massachusetts field day. I took out the trusty pocket knife and took a small sample back to the lab at UConn and sure enough...red leaf spot (sorry for whose ever plots those were...I only took a small piece). In reviewing the latest turfgrass fungicide updates from the University of Kentucky, the reports from Paul Vincelli generally hold true with the data collected from the unexpected disease in our plots. Our data suggest that the QoI fungicides held up equally well (Disarm did seem to provide slightly less control, but this was not significant). Although ProStar did not enhance disease activity in our plots as suggested by Dr. Vincelli, it definitely did not provide any suppression. Two surprises in the data relative to past trials were that myclobutanil (Quali-Pro) seemed to provide excellent preventive suppression AND that Emerald (which is only good for dollar spot and bentgrass dead spot) seemed to provide a moderate level of suppression of the disease.

Since this is my first time seeing data on red leaf spot in my own plots, please feel free to comment on your thoughts about the disease in trials conducted in your region. As with Jim's post last week about the lack of control with Curalan for early season dollar spot, we may continue to see differences in control of certain diseases based on these geographic regions.

Is it fall already? Not quite...

Cooler temperatures across much of the southeast are going to bring a much needed break from summer this week. Most of our summer-time bentgrass diseases, like anthracnose, Pythium root rot, and brown patch, should start to shut down as the bentgrass begins to grow more vigorously.

It's nice to have a little reprieve, but be sure not to let your guard down. These summer diseases can re-activate quickly if temperatures rise again in the coming weeks. The picture to the right of a severe brown patch outbreak was taken in September 2004 after a period of warm, wet weather. Be especially wary during periods of wet weather or when major aerification and/or topdressing practices are planned.

If you've had problems with Pythium root rot this summer, additional fungicide applications are a good idea during wet weather, such as a tropical storm system. If you've had anthracnose problems this summer, a fungicide application just after aerification/topdressing is a good idea as well, as these abrasive practices can cause a flare in anthracnose activity.

Of course, dollar spot should start to become more active as the temperatures cool over the next month. If this disease has been a major problem for you in the past, be sure to start preventive applications soon before symptoms of the disease appear. Once the symptoms appear, dollar spot becomes much more aggressive and difficult to control.

For those with bermudagrass greens, this is the time of year when leaf spot diseases, such as Curvularia and Bipolaris, start to come in. Preventive fungicide applications for these diseases are recommended during wet, cloudy weather or after topdressing applications. Chlorothalonil typically does a good job of keeping these diseases suppressed, but if you are looking for something that lasts longer, iprodione is a good choice.

Most people think of Pythium blight as a hot weather disease, but on bermudagrass greens, most of our problems with this disease are during cool, wet weather in the fall and spring. The image to the right of Pythium blight symptoms was taken on Champion bermudagrass greens last October. In this case, the symptoms appeared very similar to a leaf spot disease, but typical leaf spot fungicides were not controlling it. Once a sample was diagnoses as Pythium blight at our Turf Diagnostics Lab, the problem was easily controlled with an application of mefanoxam (Subdue Maxx).

Soon it will be time to start thinking about controlling large patch and spring dead spot in the warm-season grasses. Stay tuned - this will be the topic of next week's post.

Leaf spot look-a-likes

A brief reminder to practitioners and agronomists that there are other late-summer leaf spot diseases of perennial ryegrass besides grey leaf spot. I recently observed a case in central PA in which a landscaper suspected grey leaf spot was taking out his newly-seeded perennial ryegrass. In fact, the disease turned out to be a different leaf spot disease. The spores appeared similar to descriptions of Drechslera siccans. For the record…..I was fooled as well. I could have sworn it was gray leaf spot when I looked at the turf in the field. When garden-variety leaf spot diseases get rolling on susceptible hosts during extended periods of high humidity, they can resemble early stage symptoms of grey leaf spot. Some common leaf spot diseases of perennial ryegrass include net blotch and leaf blight (Pyrenophora dictyoides (sometimes referred to as Drechslera dictyoides); Leaf spot, leaf blight, and foot rot (Drechslera siccans), and leaf blight and crown rot (Drechslera catenaria). Only your diagnostician….using a microscope…..knows for sure. For riveting reading, see the chapter on Leaf spots, leaf blights, and crown rots in Fungal Diseases of Amenity Turf Grasses by Smith et al. (1989 edition).

Where is the summer heat?

Diseases normally typically appearing at this time of year will likely be on hold for another few weeks as temperatures in the Northeast continue to remain low. The main diseases that I have heard throughout the region include those typically seen in the spring. These include the leaf spots, red thread, take-all patch (although this will likely get worse when the heat does arrive), dollar spot and a reported case of copper spot in Jersey. Leave a comment below and tell me what you are seeing in your area.

For those of you dealing with dollar spot, please send some to State College! The disease showed up in typical fashion in early June and then just sat there. I walked my plots today and there was only about 10 infection centers in my untreated plots...not good for disease research.

I am still sticking by my guns and predicting that brown patch will start to move into the warmer parts of the region within the next week or so. This is also a good time to start (if you have not already) applying Pythium controls for your turf. Applications of the phosphite products have been successfully used to control Pythium on fairways, but preventive applications are necessary. On greens, the phosphites can effectively suppress algae (again when applied preventively). If the hot weather does come in fast, you will want to make sure you are covered for the hot weather diseases.

Finally, keep an eye out for next month's "PlayTurf" cover and the special interview guest. I will also be reporting on @johnkaminski from Saucon Valley and the Women's U.S. Open.

The Phantom Leaf Spot / When is it Going to Warm Up!

Not much going on in the Midwest. The weather has remained strange the past couple weeks. With day time highs in the mid 60's and lows ranging from the mid 30's to the mid 50's. Soil temperatures range from 58 F at 4 inches to 63 F at 2 inches in native soil areas. We are seeing a lot of leaf spot symptoms, but surprisingly enough we are not seeing a lot of spores in the samples. The samples have the characteristic reddish color with necrotic spots on the leaves, yet little to no sporulation on the leaf tissue. This has made diagnosis difficult because the plant and stand symptoms point directly at a leaf spot, but no signs of the pathogen. Each person that has submitted a sample has assured us that the area was not sprayed prior to submission.

However, if you do suspect leaf spot problems than an application of iprodione and chlorothalonil will do the trick, especially if the recent weather pattern continues. The forecast for this week if for warmer weather and more sunshine, which is usually the best medicine for leaf spots.

Turf managers that experienced winter kill are still trying to get areas to fill in. Because of the most recent weather pattern creeping bentgrass and annual bluegrass growth has been very slow. Going back to one of John's earlier posts, the weather drives almost everything in golf course management. The best quote I've heard this spring is from Pat Sisk "We need to be patient, we can put down everything we have but if the turf isn't growing than its not gonna work."

Watching and Waiting

Well things in the Midwest are starting to appear "normal". We have had quite the weather the past few weeks, with severe winds and significant rainfall. There is very little to report from the Upper Midwest. Most golf courses are on the road to recovery from any winter kill, however there are still some spots here and there.

As I mentioned, the spring storms have been severe and many golf course superintendents find themselves working on tree clean-up. Not much in the way of disease activity in the Midwest. We've had a few reports of yellow patch, leaf spot and dollar spot in Mid to Southern Illinois, but nothing major yet.

However, this is the perfect time for take-all patch and fairy ring preventative applications. Soil temperatures at a Madison, WI golf course were 57F on Tuesday morning. Now is also the time to monitor nitrogen fertility levels if you have a significant stand of Poa annua. Poa has started to seed at a few golf courses and with that expenditure of energy those plants may need some nitrogen. If the plants start to look chlorotic, than a light foliar feeding may be necessary. This has been shown to reduce anthracnose severity by Dr. Bruce Clarke's group at Rutgers University in New Jersery.

Odds and Ends

Parts of the Midwest have been relatively cool and wet and as a result we have seen a lot of Microdochium patch in our diagnostic clinic. If the weather remains cool and wet than Microdochium patch can become fairly severe and may warrant a fungicide application. There are many fungicides that work well curatively against Microdochium patch. For more specific information please consult our webpage: http://www.plantpath.wisc.edu/tdl/. At our webpage you can access our research reports, from which you can see what chemicals performed well in our snow mold trials this spring.

A few courses in Wisconsin have reported some minor leaf spot symptoms on creeping bentgrass. After talking with the superintendents, the symptoms were not severe enough to justify a fungicide application. Many superintendents throughout the Upper Midwest are still dealing with winter injury of Poa annua. One particular superintendent has implemented a fairly aggressive cultural program to encourage re-growth. He has aerified and dimple tined greens, along with a fairly heavy fertilization and a light topdressing. He has seen significant improvements and is well on the road to recovery.

Finally, Derek Settle at the Chicago District Golf Association has observed brown ring patch at several locations in the Chicago land area. Outside of Derek’s report, we have not heard reports of brown ring patch anywhere else in the Midwest yet. If you are struggling with brown ring patch or suspect you may have this disease please feel free to contact us. You can find our contact information on the website posted above.