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

NO WIND = DEAD GRASS

I'm back.

For those of you who were hoping that my first post would be on bacterial wilt, I am sorry to disappoint you, but we have more important problems here in the Southeast right now.

Several years ago, I got a call from an angry homeowner who lived in a golf course community. The golf course superintendent had installed a fan adjacent to the green in her back yard. Said fan was preventing her from enjoying her patio, keeping her awake at night, and reducing the value of her property.

She must have been a scientist of some sort, because she asked me if I had a mathematical model that could be used to determine if a fan was necessary. So I broke out my plant physiology, meteorology, and calculus books and after several weeks of analysis, I came up with the following equation:

NO WIND + HEAT = DEAD GRASS

I don't think she liked that answer because I never heard from her again. But this summer is proving my equation to be correct: I have never seen fans make such a huge difference in the survival of creeping bentgrass putting greens as they are this year. Just about everywhere I've visited, the creeping bentgrass being impacted by fans is relatively healthy, whereas the turf furthest away from the fans or on greens without fans is really struggling.

It's been a difficult summer and there's no sign of it getting any easier. But if one positive thing can come out of it, we can use it to demonstrate the benefit of turf fans, fine tune the placement of existing fans, or fight for the money to install additional fans. Don't miss this opportunity!

On the disease side, a number of superintendents in our area are still struggling with Pythium root rot, and some summer patch is also showing up on creeping bentgrass greens. For more information about these diseases, please see the following post from last year.

We have also seen a couple of cases of Rhizoctonia zeae on creeping bentgrass greens. This pathogen induces similar symptoms to brown patch, but is active at higher temperatures and the patches or rings have more of an orange coloration. Most fungicides labeled for brown patch will provide good control of R. zeae, but this pathogen is not sensitive to thiophanate-methyl and is less sensitive to iprodione so you should avoid these products.

Relentless heat and humidity

Hi,

I have a pile of turf and ornamental samples to get back to in the lab, so this will be quick.

Basically, heat and humidity continue to pound us. From what I've read, cool-season root growth pretty much ceases when 4-inch soil temps are >77. Our average here in Manhattan over the past 10 days is 84, with some spikes up into the 90's. So, we are hurtin'.

I know that some superintendents are feeling stress almost as much as, or worse than, the turf itself. Golfers, boards, and greens committees aren't always in tune with what Mother Nature is throwing at us. I was happy to hear that a few supers are using this national blog, and some of my K-State stuff that I send out here at home, to help explain things to their boards, etc.

Fairy ring is burning in some sites:




Brown patch is active in many sites, including in some fairway height Kentucky bluegrass at our research facility. That was a first for me. I snapped a photo but it did not turn out so great.


For any of you interested in the ornamentals side of things, I have a posting about crown rot of hosta and other bedding plants HERE

It's an interesting disease. The pathogen is very closely related to the one that causes southern blight in turf.

Summer Stress Programs for Desert Bentgrass in CA

Developing a Summer Stress Fungicide Program for Coachella Bentgrass (and the Case of the Mysterious #13)

This is a follow up on something I been meaning to address but spurred on by an email I received this week:

Dr. Wong,

I am a Golf Course Superintendent in the Palm Springs area and manage Penncross putting greens. As we both know, heat and cool-season grasses don’t work well together.

Currently we are experiencing exceptional summer bentgrass decline due to high heat and humidity. Are there any fungicide trials or protocols that other Superintendents may be using to minimize effects of SBD? We have fans on each greens, and water as needed with syringing during the day. Our heights are .150 and mowed every other day. Other than that we try to keep them alive.

Hot in Coachella

Yes, bentgrass and triple digit temperatures through the summer get along as well as Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown in California. Based on work done at NC State by Turfgrass Specialist Art Bruneau, cool season turfgrass growth pretty much declines rapidly when 4-inch deep soil temperatures reach 70°F with root and shoot growth completely shutting down at 77ºF and 90ºF, respectively.

http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/articles/tf00766.aspx

With soil temps in the California desert hitting 70 to 90ºF from April to September, it means a long late spring through the fall of tough conditions for superintendents in the desert (including other areas in the SW like Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada) who have to hold onto their bentgrass year round.

Although fighting Mother Nature through this period can be partially successful using fans and syringing; in any case, simply put the high temperatures will result in poor growth and recovery from the bentgrass magnifying any damage caused to the turf by mechanical, environmental or pest stress.

From a pathologist’s point of view, the diseases that would likely cause the most damage to bentgrass in this climate would be takeall patch, Pythium blight , Curvularia blight and algae.

Month	Avg. Hi	Avg. Low	Avg. Prec.
Jan	70°F	44°F	1.27 in.
Feb	75°F	47°F	1.15 in.
Mar	80°F	51°F	0.63 in.
Apr	88°F	56°F	0.08 in.
May	95°F	63°F	0.06 in.
Jun	104°F	70°F	0.05 in.
Jul	108°F	76°F	0.19 in.
Aug	107°F	76°F	0.40 in.
Sep	101°F	71°F	0.39 in.
Oct	91°F	61°F	0.11 in.
Nov	78°F	50°F	0.29 in.
Dec	70°F	43°F	0.61 in.

Take all typically infects and damages plants in cool wet weather through the fall and winter. Symptoms can often show up under periods of heat stress because plants with damaged roots simply can’t efficiently use water to keep themselves alive. In the desert, the high temps really hamper the ability of the turfgrass to recover and regrow, magnifying take all damage on bentgrass greens. I won’t cover it much here, but soil pH and manganese management coupled with preventive fall fungicide applications work best for preventing problems with take all.

Pythium blight is a real threat to cool season turfgrass when night time temperatures stay above 68ºF and there’s adequate moisture to trigger fungal growth and spread. There’s an excellent review of Pythium here at the Rutgers website:

http://www.turf.rutgers.edu/research/diseasecontrolseminar/pythium.pdf

Believe it or not, but Curvularia blight is pretty common to find on bentgrass coming from the desert. Curvularia can often be considered a wimpy disease that only attacks weakened or nearly dead bentgrass, but like anthracnoseon Poa, it can be the nail that closes the coffin on your summer stressed bentgrass if not controlled.

Alage can also turn up commonly as it’s quick to colonize wet surfaces and thinned out bentgrass in the summer.

The Mysterious Program #13

As detailed in the Pythium presentation above, Bruce Martin at Clemson is credited with developing a fungicide spray program (#13) that has worked very well for managing diseases on creeping bentgrass in the southeastern U.S.: http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/southeast/Program--13-Still-The-Best-At-Dr--Martin-Fungicide-Trials---December-2008/

The question posed by several Coachella Valley superintendents has been “how well does #13 work in California?”

Well, Bruce’s #13 provides broad spectrum protection vs. a number of summer diseases while using some of Bayer’s “Stress Gard” pigmented materials, and Insignia which BASF is reporting to promote plant health. But….the southeast gets a lot more humidity and #13 is also designed to pick up brown patch and dollar spot; it’s just too dry in Coachella to have these figure as major players in a summer disease profile.

Looking at #13, applications start in late May in the southeast and go at 14-day intervals; here’s the break down with likely targets of activity.

May 22: Tartan 2.0 fl oz --> brown patch/dollar spot control

June 5: Insignia 0.9 oz --> broad spectrum disease control

June 19: Spectro 90 5.76 oz --> broad spectrum disease control (no Pythium actvity)

July 3: Signature 4.0 oz + Daconil Ultrex 3.2 oz --> Pythium control, algae control, stress reduction

July 17: Insignia 0.9 oz --> broad spectrum disease control

July 31: Signature 4.0 oz + Daconil Ultrex 3.2 oz --> Pythium control, algae control, stress reduction

August 14: Chipco 26GT 4.0 fl oz --> brown patch/dollar spot/Curvularia control

August 28: Tartan 2.0 fl oz --> brown patch/dollar spot control

OK – if you discount the presence of dollar spot and brown patch in Coachella, you can see some of these applications would not be necessarily applicable. Also with regard to Tartan which is a mix of Compass and Bayleton, applying a DMI (Bayleton) isn’t necessary, especially if dollar spot pressure is absent. Spectro probably isn’t needed as much, again due to the lack of dollar spot and brown patch pressure.

Pythium pressure is likely to come from June through September with high night time temperatures. Insignia and Signature + Daconil applications would probably give some significant benefits during this time for both Pythium and “plant health benefits”. Although other Pythium-specific fungicides like Subdue, Banol and Stellar could be used, I would save these for overseeding type situations or when you know that hot wet weather is coming. Otherwise, it may be fine to rely on preventive applications of Signature or other phosphonate/phosphite type products during the summer. Although many of the phosphonate or phosphite type products do a very good job of controlling pythium and improving plant health, the “Stress Gard” pigment in Signature is something I think works pretty well as an added layer of stress relief for your turf.

I’d see Curvularia as a constant threat through the season, but it may not be worth using a 26GT application specifically for this disease, when you can get control with other materials.

A contact fungicide like mancozeb (Fore) may work just fine in Coachella for keeping pathogens like Curvularia at bay, plus beating back algae.

So…in putting all of this together, I’d say that #13 is a great program, but not necessarily well fit for southwestern desert bentgrass greens.

Looking at the situation, maybe something like this would work:

May 15: Fore 8 oz

Jun 1: Insignia 0.9 oz

Jun 15: Fore 8 oz

Jul 1: Signature 4.0 oz + Daconil Ultrex 3.2 oz

Jul 15: Insignia 0.9 oz

Aug 1: Signature 4.0 oz + Daconil Ultrex 3.2 oz

Aug 15: Fore 8 oz

Sep 1: Signature 4.0 oz + Daconil Ultrex 3.2 oz

Sep 15: Fore 8 oz

Keeping the Signature and Daconil in the mix as a stress & algae application; Insignia as a 28-day preventive early in the summer and regular applications of Fore to clean up algae and clean up “junk” diseases like Curvularia may work just fine.

I’d like to see some research in Coachella to support the suggestions, but this type of program may be a good starting point. If you think "there goes Dr. Wong, smoking the crack again." - that's fine too; I think it's good to have some discussion about what is working for guys in the desert who are growing bentgrass.

Bottom line: programs like #13, are very good, but may not cover the diseases & stresses unique to the southwest – think about what you’re trying to fight and design a program around that.

A Few Thoughts about Nematodes

One thing that needs some attention as far as bentgrass greens in Coachella is the presence of some new root knot nemtaodes found affecting cool season turf. Very high populations were associated with severe damage at a few locations in Coachella in 2009. As discussed above, the summer stress for growing creeping bentgrass in Coachella is already pretty high – nematode populations really need to be considered in this equation.

This is a green from 2009 in Coachella that took some severe nematode damage; don't let this be you!

If you’re growing bentgrass in the Valley; it’d be worth having a test done to see if you need to worry abouyt these critters as well.

OK – until next week – signing off from the Right Coast…..

Stress stress stress, why a putting green is like a toddler, and localized dry spot

We've had a stretch of hot weather, high humidity, and very high night-time lows. On Monday and Tuesday I had about half a dozen conversations which started with a superintendent saying "everything looked fine Friday, and by Monday it was in a tailspin."

Root problems in putting greens are common this week. If I only had 1.5 inches of roots, I’d be hurtin’, too:

In turf, and in other plants, all the soaking rains have damaged the root systems and now that it is turning hot, it does not take much to push putting greens over the edge. I asked Dr. Jack Fry to give us some pointers on the tricky balance of water management. You can find his comments HERE.

Just scroll down a little bit. That's where you'll learn how putting greens are like toddlers.

Along with compromised rootzones, hydrophobic soils/localized dry spot can sneak up fast in weather like this and cause wide-spread damage in a short time.

Check out the photo below:

The upper inch or so of the profile is fine–the water drops were absorbed instantly and you can see how the soil is wet. And, from 2-inches down is okay too. Unfortunately, there is a stubborn layer of hydrophobic soil from about 1 to 2 inches down. I put the water droplets there, took the photos, then went to work on some other samples. When I glanced over again 30 minutes later, they still had not been absorbed.

If you have known hot spots of hydrophobic soils it is critical for you to keep an eye on them this week, and as long as the heat continues. Get a soil probe and use it. When you water, take some plugs out and make sure the water is actually getting down where it needs to go. Use a wetting agent, and water it in, following all label instructions.

In hot, dry conditions it’s dangerous to aerify, but if we get a stretch of cooler days, you could use solid tines.

Happy Summer! Wait- didn’t that happen about 2 1/2 weeks ago?

Well, the disease season is off to a rip roaring start. In the transition zone and southeast we have had multiple days this month that have been in the 90’s with high humidities, and warm nights not much below 70. That kind of weather translates to serious disease. Dollar spot, brown patch (below), even some potential for pythium blight. It is clear from the photo to the right (Upper left plot is untreated) that having a preventative fungicide program is crucial to achieve successful disease control.

We have had an earlier than usual disease startup, but all in all it looks like our trials are off to an excellent start. Fungicide programs that are showing the best early results are those with Signature and Daconil as a backbone as well as those that have some form of StressGard in them. Also, programs using Syngenta products are performing well too. Fungicide programs with post-patent products, and a straight Daconil 7-day program are starting to curb some dollar spot that was present prior to the trial initiation and both of those programs are demonstrating good disease control into their second applications. On the dollar spot front, most everything that we are applying is working, and we are getting good disease control. Our controls however, continue to highlight the importance of good fertility (since we are only using 0.25# N/1000/month).

Finally, UT had a groundbreaking last Friday for our 1.5 million dollar Center for Safer Athletic Fields that has been funded by AstroTurf. The 5th first-round draft pick for the Kansas City Chiefs, Eric Berry was on hand to lend his endorsement, and we are excited to be building a facility that will provide funding for athletic field research on a scale that has only been seen in golf turf research previously. Look for more regular posts from the Southeast now that Summer is officially here!!

Unusual Pythium on Putting Greens

In last week's post, I briefly mentioned a strange Pythium problem that has shown up over the last few years. A few superintendents in the New York Met and select regions in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast may have heard me speak about this at a local conference, but for the most part this problem is not a widespread problem. I will make this disclaimer: we have very limited information on what is really going on with this Pythium and a majority of our info is from trial and error.

Between 2005 and 2009, a dozen or so golf courses had issues controlling what was believed to be summer patch on their golf course putting greens. I had made trips to several of these courses to confirm that what we were seeing in the lab matched what was happening in the field. As it turned out, field symptoms were typical of the classic characteristics of summer patch. Further investigations in the lab revealed that a Pythium species appeared to be the culprit.

The Pythium was not a root disease, but was instead a foliar problem. While mycelium can be seen in small quantities following incubation, it does not "fluff" out like your typical Pythium bligt. To see the mycelium, you need a hand lens or a dissecting microscope. Two separate Pythium species were routinely isolated from symptomatic samples. Isolates were identified via DNA sequencing and although the Pythium spp are not new to turf, they are considered weak pathogens and generally not associated with severe Pythium infestations.

The weakly aggressive species may be the reason for the types of symptoms in the field. As mentioned, the symptoms of this disease are nearly identical to summer patch. The disease appears to selectively infect annual bluegrass and leaves the bentgrass to "fill into" the center of the declining patches. The patches may show up during late spring and the disease may remain active until late summer. Unlike typical Pythium diseases, the patch symptoms are SLOW to develop. Similarities among the courses that have dealt with this (from Maryland up to Massachusetts) include: 1) native soil putting greens with routine topdressing; 2) limited to no internal drainage, mixed bentgrass/annual bluegrass stands; and 3) reliance on Signature for the summer management of Pythium.

While the preventive applications of Signature have been shown to provide excellent suppression of Pythium blight as well as provide improved summer stress management, its influence on this particular problem remains unknown. In discussions with a colleague at the University of Florida, it appears that while Signature provides excellent suppression of the typical, more aggressive Pythium species, in vitro tests have shown reduced effectiveness on certain species (at least one of which are those isolated from our samples).

So what do you do about this potential problem?

1. Get samples diagnosed: This is not an easy one to diagnose and takes a little extra effort. Symptoms look identical to summer patch, which makes accurate identification even more difficult.

2. Utilize more traditional Pythium fungicides during summer: My recommendation has been to stay on your Signature program (or get on one) throughout the season to enhance your summer stress management. However, DO NOT RELY on these applications exclusively to suppress Pythium. My recommendations have been the preventive applications of something like Subdue or Segway when temperatures start to become conducive for Pythium.

3. Curative control with Banol: There have been limited to no trials for this disease on putting greens (if anyone is willing to have me create a quilt-patch of healthy and dead turf on their putting green, please let me know). What seems to work consistently for the curative control of this disease, however, is the foliar application of Banol. Do not water this in.

4. Improve Drainage: This is more of a long-term solution, but anything that can be done to improve the internal drainage on the putting green will help in managing not only this disease, but various other problems during the summer.

Remember, there is very limited research-based information on this problem. We will continue to monitor new cases closely, but unfortunately don't have any real answers at this point (although the control measures mentioned above have been effective). If you think that you may have (or had) this problem, feel free to let us know in the comments or via email.

**I will try to find some images to post tomorrow, but wanted to get this out on-time today.

Big Bucks, No Whammy

Dang, I had several photos that I wanted to include today, and a graph showing dollar spot progress in one of my trials, but sadly my computer (with all my photos, etc) is not working at all, and the IT guy is not around. I'm camped out at another computer right now, in the diagnostic lab.

The thing is, for the past two days I've been joking with friends about Whammies. Remember that silly game show with the Whammies? I used to watch it when home sick from school, or on summer break. Big bucks, big bucks, no Whammy. Well, this afternoon the Whammy didn't steal my money, but he did wreck my laptop, and that's even worse.

Anyway:

There is a ton of dollar spot out there. At our research center we have dollar spot in the greens, fairways, and in the perennial ryegrass lawn/rough height areas. This morning was very dewy and there was some dollar spot mycelium in the rye. I even had a sample this week of dollar spot from a bermudagrass home lawn. Late August into September is when we get severe dollar spot, sometimes taking grass out down to the ground on putting greens.

I was surprised to see a little bit of faint brown patch on the putting green at our research facility this morning. In fact, I wasn't even the one to notice it first--my colleague Dr. Jack Fry spotted it before I did. It has been cool lately, but the last couple of days have been warmer and very humid, so I guess it was not so surprising after all.

Other than these couple of diseases the weather conditions have been fantastic lately for cool-season turf. It's the last Friday in August, and there is always a sigh of relief when turning the calendar over to September. The summer stress is over. As a superintendent once told me (during a particularly hot/stressful summer), "God grows the grass 9 months of the year, then turns it over to us for June, July, and August."

I thought I'd also mention that in landscape/ornamentals there has been a rush of tree and shrub samples in the past week. Just like turf most of the time, most tree samples are NOT diseases--it is an environmental stress issue. But there have been a ton of actual diseases lately. Culprits have included:bacterial leaf spot in English Ivy; bacterial leaf spot in hydrangea; septoria leaf spot in dogwood; cercospora leaf spot in lilac; cylindrosporium leaf spot on spirea; mycosphaerella leaf spot on ash. We don't see too many bacterial leaf spots in Kansas. Fungal leaf spots require wet weather, but bacterial leaf spots require even more. This year was very wet in many locations, wet enough to trigger bacteria. That is darn wet.

That's it. I hope the Whammy doesn't get you, or your turf.

It's a Mix Out There!

With all of the wacky weather we've had in California, we're seeing a mix of spring and summer diseases in the lab here and through reports from superintendents.
Rapid blight and Waitea are still active on Poa greens as is pink snow mold here and there in Northern California.

Anthracnose still hasn't shown up from Poa greens just yet - but has been seen on stressed perennial ryegrass samples from roughs and on a bentgrass green in Idaho.

In this bentgrass case - low fertility contributed to the disease popping up on mechanically or weather damaged turf.

Bermudagrass samples are starting to show up in the lab with decline or other ETRI on the roots. As we get further into the summer transition to bermudagrass, superintendents are starting to see weak areas thinned out by pathogen activity on the roots over the winter. A healthy dose of sun, heat and water will probably get thinned out areas of bermudagrass to fill in, but take note of these areas and see if you can improve compaction, fertility or drainage here; environmental factors that usually contribute to decline, spring dead spot or ETRI damage on bermudagrass.

It's all about your roots: good roots now means less summer stress later
Already, we've been getting samples in the lab showing heat and summer stress. With rapid changes in weather and conditions, greens can go from looking good to looking like crap in a very short period of time. Often the first heat spell will show where you have good roots. The more roots you can put down before the summer heat starts the better. That means additional solid tine aerification, addressing dry spots will handwatering or soil wetting agents and most importantly, adequate nitrogen fertility. Poa/bent greens need at least a quarter pound of nitrogen per 1,000 sq ft/month and even up to half a pound if you have a lot of play or traffic. Give cool season turf enough food to grow now, because when we start going into the 90s and 100s, cool season turf will start to shut down and you may be in trouble if you don't have enough roots or plant mass to make it through the summer.