The turf is chillin'

I was at Oklahoma State University yesterday to give a couple of presentations at a tree workshop. ("Are you pining for healthy pines?" hah, clever, eh?? maybe not...). My OSU colleagues Damon Smith (plant path), Eric Rebek (entomology), and Mike Schnelle (hort) were great hosts and they also gave some excellent presentations.

But...

Just outside the door.... was the OSU turf research center, and I was excited to find this symptom (in the above photo) in some bermudagrass.

What is going on here?

This is a form of chilling injury. Chilling injury like this usually occurs when temps are between about 32 and 54 degrees. Symptoms tend to appear 24-48 hours after the chilling event. The bleached out areas are due to degradation of chlorophyll. Why the funky pattern? Nobody knows for sure, but it may have to do with small-scale differences in where the coldest air settles.

Ohio State has a collection of podcasts, and there is one that addresses chilling injury.

http://buckeyeturf.osu.edu/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,78/

Then, go to the December 2006 section of the archives (blue list on the right).

Or, go to this site:

http://buckeyeturf.osu.edu/profcast1/OSU_Turf_Podcast1.rss

And scroll down about halfway and you’ll see the file for Chilling Injury. You can click and either run it or download it to view later.

The Most Wonderful Time of Year

We are in the midst of snow mold season in the Midwest, or at least Paul and I are traveling all over Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This year we have two sites in Minnesota- Edina Country Club in Minneapolis and a golf course in Baxter. The site in Baxter Minnesota is 100 miles from Fargo North Dakota and we have ventured up there to get a better handle on snow scald control. We received a lot of samples from that part of the country and superintendents have had difficulty controlling that disease.

We have two sites in Wisconsin-Sentryworld Golf Course in Stevens Point and Milwaukee Country Club in Milwaukee. Sentryworld is our old faithful site as it usually yields good snow mold pressure every year. However, we found out last year that treatments that work in Stevens Point may not necessarily work under extreme pressure. So we decided to venture to the UP of Michigan. Last year the snow mold pressure was intense in Champion Michigan and I suspect it will be again this year. We travel to all these sites to provide golf course superintendents the best possible recommendations for snow mold in there area. So check back with us next year when we finalize our trials, should be interesting.

On another note, I agree with Frank- the flu sucks! I have come down with the flu and I think it is the first time I have had the disease. Wow does this disease take the wind out your sails. I know I promised posts on all the different snow molds and I will do so starting next week. Sorry for the short post this week.

Effects of DMI Fungicides on Bermudagrass Putting Greens

Those of you that follow this blog know that I am not a big fan of using DMI fungicides on creeping bentgrass and annual bluegrass putting greens during the heat of summer. The impacts of these fungicides on bermudagrass greens, however, are not as well understood. Some of the newer DMIs, like Trinity, Triton and Tourney, are not labeled for application to ultradwarf bermudagrass varieties. Even though these products are safer on the cool-season grasses, they can cause severe phytotoxicity and thinning of 'Champion', 'Tifeagle' and 'Miniverde' greens.

A recent trial we performed on 'Champion' bermudagrass in Rocky Mount, NC showed some unexpected results. Each fungicide was applied once, on August 20, the day after the greens were hollow-tine aerified and topdressed. The plots were evaluated for phytotoxicity, turf quality, and recovery from aerification on September 1.

Not surprisingly, plots treated with Trinity, Tourney, and Triton FLO exhibited significant phytotoxicity and reduced turf quality as compared to the untreated control. Banner and Bayleton had similar effects, just not as severe as the others.

What was unexpected was the effect of the DMIs on recovery from aerification, as measured by the number of aerification holes still visible on Sept 1. Plots treated with Trinity, Tourney, and Triton FLO recovered almost as quickly as the untreated plots, whereas both Bayleton and Banner dramatically slowed recovery, especially Banner.

So, the take home message is, even though Bayleton and Banner are labeled for application to bermudagrass greens, these products can have adverse affects on the turf, in this case, slower recovery from aerification. More research is needed to fully characterize the effects of the DMIs on bermudagrass greens. In the meantime, I'd recommend avoiding applications of DMI fungicides either before or after hollow-tine aerification practices.

Oh Man, the Flu Sucks....

Just a short one today guys.

Last week's diagnoses pretty much read: rapid blight, rapid blight, rapid blight from both northern and southern California. It looks like the rains have helped as we've seen almost no rapid blight in the lab this week. Dollar spot and some brown patch and large patch activity has been reported sporadically here and there.

I have heard about a number of superintendents fighting Pythium in Oregon and Washington right now. It's been really wet up there and according to Gwen Stanke at WSU "[It's the] Worst year I’ve seen in my 20 years here".

Other than that - I've been clobbered something this week. I'm hoping it's just a really bad cold and not H1N1 (since I already got my regular flu shot this year). Sometimes I think flying on airplanes is a great way to get sick.

Signing off from the left coast until next week.......

Weather! What the...?

For those of you not paying attention to the weather in State College (as I am sure most of you don't), all I can say is WTH. State College received the earliest snow on record and it was not met with much happiness. For one thing, the leaves are still on all the trees and the heavy snow caused a lot of damage. The image to the right shows some of the damage that I witnessed outside the house on my way to work. In addition to this, I was without electricity for 2 days. This wouldn't have been such a problem except to keep warm, I had the gas fireplace going only to wake up in the middle of the night with the carbon monoxide detector going off. Needless to say, I had some trouble getting back to sleep that night!

SO...as you can imagine there are not a lot of diseases in State College at this point, but around other parts of the Northeast golf course superintendents are preparing for snow mold applications. According to this weeks survey, superintendents are also participating in the numerous early-season purchasing programs offered by many of the manufacturers. This is one area that is gaining popularity and a few researchers are putting together programs related to the economics of turfgrass management.

SO...as I have tried to do all year (with little success due to the lurkers in here), I will once again try to find out what you (our readers) are planning for next year. For those of you buying on the early-order programs, what is it that you are looking for and how do you plan your purchases for the upcoming year?

If you feel inclined to do so, feel free to leave your answers in the comments.

AND...for those of you lurking and not feeling like answering, you can check out what others are doing with some superintendent blogs that I like to read!

http://therimgolfclub.blogspot.com/
http://cccpgcm.blogspot.com/
http://ergcm.blogspot.com/
http://geccgcm.blogspot.com/
http://creekmoormaintenance.blogspot.com/
http://greensuper.blogspot.com/
http://pinetreegm.blogspot.com/
http://sandstonegolf.blogspot.com/
http://sgccturf.blogspot.com/