Skip to main content

Fusarium, Rolling Results

The results are in for my accidental discovery last week. I collected the data and Larry from PACE Turf analyzed it for me.
Golf Tees show the Fusarium Patches on the Control Plot
(never rolled ever)
Now it would be easy to jump to conclusion that rolling more is better but hold on just a second. This study is far from scientific and was designed for a completely different purpose. Any superintendent will tell you that no two sites are the same and what I am seeing might not be repeatable on other sites....maybe. This study was not set up to study turfgrass disease and therefore some of the results could be augmented due to disease spread from mowers. Further study is definitely needed to really get to the bottom of this discovery.

 I hypothesize that the reason rolling is having an effect on fusarium is the same reason that rolling has an effect on Dollar Spot. Researches are working to see if it is the increased microbial populations in soils that are rolled that are having an effect on the fusarium patch fungus. I also agree with Dr. Vargas and Paul Giordano's research with respect to dew removal. In my experience we rarely have dew on this turf during periods of high fusarium pressure due to constant rain.

This plot is rolled 1x/day. The cluster of disease suggests
that the disease could be spread by a mower from a nearby
control plot located to the top right of this plot.
Making this discovery has left me with a ton of questions. Can this be used to control fusarium in the winter? Does soil fertility have an effect? Do different rolling frequencies have different effects at different times of the year? Can rolling be used curatively to combat already active fusarium (a long-shot but what the hell)?

This is a pretty cool discovery but I do not recommend that everyone go out and start rolling like that fool in Pender Harbour. What I do recommend is that you set aside a small part of your nursery or practice green and do a test for yourself. Leave a spot untreated with pesticides and try a few different rolling frequencies to see if it has an effect on your site. I would recommend you start with rolling frequencies of 1, 2, and 3 times daily.

This plot is rolled 4x daily
I have rolled daily since 2010 on my Poa annua greens with no ill effects. I have now upped the rolling to 2x daily to see what will happen. I haven't seen any ill effects from rolling as much as 4x daily on my trial green so I am very confident that it will not harm my putting greens. For me, rolling an extra time each day costs the club $20. It potentially will reduce the amount of pesticides we need to use and the greens are that much nicer! Win win? We'll see.

What really excites me about this discovery is the potential it holds. Fusarium is my biggest threat and the only pest that I cannot control at my location without pesticides. The only respite West Coast turf managers get from this pest is the summer heat and dry weather. I am seeing these results in spring during cool wet conditions on a putting green grown in almost complete shade (2 hours of sun per day tops). If fusarium patch can be controlled in cool wet conditions culturally this could be big. Cultural control independent of the weather. If anything this could mean that turf managers could have another tool in their toolbox for fighting or preventing Microdochium nivale in putting green turf.


Tru-Turf should really sponsor me. This machine kicks ass!
Poa annua rolled 8x daily with a HOC of 0.090" during full seed head flush with only 2 hrs of sunlight/day. Whoa!
do you see what I see? Where's the seedhead? Oh snap!
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Turfgrass speedo is still my most important tool for managing turf growth after 4 years.

It wasn't the easiest year for growing grass , but the conditions were still pretty good. Almost 4 years ago exactly, I came up with the idea of comparing actual clipping yields to the "ideal" clipping yield or the clipping yield adjusted using the Growth Potential Model . Since then, it has proved to be a much more useful tool to manage growth than I originally thought .  It has been almost a decade since I started making observations on plant health and playability and how it relates to the clipping yield. I have been constantly searching for ways to get the growth rate right as often as I can and this tool seems to be the best way I have seen so far, and might ultimately, be the best way going forward. To prove this point I will discuss in a future post, the success I've had with pest control in the past few years (for the most part (Not withstanding the times where I think my greens are dead but they actually aren't...thanks T)). Never needed less There are ...
Read more

Do you have enough?

I recently discussed how we can use fertilizer ratios to simplify how much fertilizer we apply to help us keep above the MLSN guidelines . When we get a soil test done it is a static amount of nutrients found in the soil. Even if you are above the MLSN guidelines at the time of testing, it doesn't guarantee that you will remain at or above the guidelines as the grass grows and consumes nutrients. There is math that you can use to determine exactly how much nutrient you need to apply to ensure that you remain at or above the MLSN guidelines. For many, this is much too complicated. For that reason I made a quick cheat sheet to help you determine how much of each nutrient you can expect to use each year based off a few different annual nitrogen rates. Nutrient use is based primarily on nitrogen use so the left 2 columns are a few different nitrogen rates. The columns for each nutrient are in PPM and are designed to help you look at your current soil test PPM (mehlich 3) and determin...
Read more

How to quantify nutrient content in liquid fertilizer

In a recent post, I discussed how it was actually cheaper to spray soluble vs granular fertilizer. What about if we use pre-mixed liquid fertilizer? How do we even figure out how much nutrient we are applying with pre-mixed liquid fertilizer?  Before I learned that you could simply dissolve soluble fertilizer in water and apply it in a sprayer, I was a big user of pre-mixed liquid fertilizers. One of the issues I initially had was figuring out exactly how much of each nutrient I was applying. The math wasn't as straightforward is it was with granular fertilizers. It turns out, it's actually not that difficult but requires an extra step.  First, we need to convert the liquid volume into a mass. Many products will have the product density displayed on the label or you can look in the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for that information as well. No SDS? Should you be using products without an SDS? Even if this information isn't included on the label it is very easy to figure out. All ...
Read more