Skip to main content

Dollar Spot So Far

So far so good...

I am very confident in saying that my organic pest control for dollar spot works. It is actually the best control I have ever seen on my putting greens. So far this season I have only seen one single spot on my putting greens. Even with synthetic pesticides I still had more, mind you I wasn't using the synthetics preventatively.

So far I am using the following strategies for dollar spot control:

  1. Light and frequent soluble nitrogen applications (urea) while ensuring adequate soil moisture for nutrient uptake with a soil moisture meter.
  2. Rolling 1-2x daily as needed.
  3. Civitas applied at the 1/4 rate weekly to keep the colour down.
  4. Phosphites applied weekly in my fertilizer applications.
  5. Rhapsody ASO fungicide applied at the low rate every 2 weeks.
Other than the Urea fertilizer applications everything above is considered organic. All of the actual pest control products are registered organic by the OMRI .


Fairways are feeling the pain
I know what I am doing is working as the disease potential is very high right now. Our fairways are smoked with dollar spot. This is due to the fact that the only management practices that are carried out on the fairways is cutting, fertilization, and irrigation. That is all, no pesticides whatsoever. So it is expected to see disease on our fairways at all times of the year. We are also struggling to keep adequate moisture levels in our fairways due to dense thatch layers and a poor performing irrigation system. Moisture is key to ensure adequate nutrient uptake which isn't happening on our fairways at all.

Typical putting green turf under organic pest management.
 I have left a few control areas on the course to evaluate my different product applications and management practices and I have to say that they all work, alone and together!

So far I am seeing civitas and rolling alone providing complete control. I haven't seen any difference with the Rhapsody control plots though that is to be expected when virtually every square centimeter of my putting greens is rolled at least once a day.
I have to say that I am a little disappointed though. With the success of all of these products alone and combined it is quite clear that I am wasting resources if I continue to keep using them all. I will continue with the program for the rest of the month but will seriously have to consider using all of the tools next dollar spot season. Right now I am thinking of using civitas and rolling only due to their mode of action on the dollar spot fungus.

Adequate soil moisture is key.
So who knew? It turns out that in my climate organic pest control is very doable during the summer months. I even feel that in slightly more extreme climates success could be had if all of these practices were combined. If history means anything I should be back into fusarium season in a month. I plan on maintaining the organic pest control plan into the fall depending on the success rate. So far I have had experience with only phosphites in the winter months with no overwhelming control.

Stay tuned.....



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