Fusariummy

As things wind down for the season I begin to have time to reflect on the past season and make sense of some of the data I have collected. This season wasn't without it's challenges especially when it comes to disease management without the use of traditional pesticides. Obviously I wasn't successful but I made some important observations that should help me next year.  I had an amazingly successful winter  but it all came crashing down in June . I again had a very successful July and August but again in early September I was hit hard with fusarium. June and September have always been tough months as they are transition months, they are warm but also usually wet. This creates the perfect storm for fungal attack. Without an effective organic contact pesticide I was out of luck. It is pretty well known that high nitrogen generally means higher incidence of fusarium on putting greens. It wasn't until I came across the GP fertility method that I was able to more accurately...

It has been almost 2 months since my last post and it's not because nothing has been happening. It was a really busy and good summer and I was trying some new things out to combat disease on the golf course. Since my last disease update the main disease of focus has been Dollar Spot. Last year I was successful in combating Dollar Spot on my greens but my fairways were wiped out. It was the worst I had ever seen actually. As always applying a fungicide to my fairways wasn't possible. You could see the devastation from space More disease than grass in 2012 I accounted this extreme disease to a few factors. In an attempt to drive down fertilizer use on my fairways I had got to 100% UMAXX slow release nitrogen source. This allowed me to put down a heavier granular rate that would last longer. In theory I could get by with just two applications per year and would half the amount of nitrogen on my fairways. With the tools I had at the time this seemed to be the most realistic way to...