Fusariummy

Every once in a while I am treated to having guests tour the course with me who have no prior knowledge of what I have been doing on the course and it allows me to share everything I have learned over the years. During these times I am reminded of all the crazy stuff that I am doing that I don't normally think of as most of them have become "normal" to me. I thought it might be good to do an overview post every now and then to catch everyone up on what that nut bar in Canada is up to. For those that have been following along, this year have been great. I have been practicing low impact (disturbance theory) management on my greens and have had great success in promoting bentgrass. I haven't required a broadcast traditional fungicide application since April 2nd and have been using regular phosphite applications and spot applications to keep the disease in check. I have been following all my theories and plans and feel that they continue to deliver the expected results.

A few years ago I seeded yarrow into the sand trap surrounds at the advice of Armen Suny . This "weed" is perfectly adapted for the tough growing conditions surrounding sand traps, it stays green even when it is extremely dry, provides a good playing surface when mowed, and spreads to provide a good stable edge to a trap. This year we have been experiencing the worst drought since they started taking records. Needless to say we have had trouble keeping some of our bunker surrounds in good shape. Today I noticed that the yarrow was still doing great, despite the difficult growing conditions on the course and especially on the bunker edges. Here are a few pictures to show just how happy the yarrow is. The collar is on a steep slope. Any hand watering will wash out the trap. The yarrow is creeping in from the trap edge towards the green in these tough growing conditions. Without the yarrow the trap edge would completely collapse. Close up of the yarrow creeping back from the bun

Death to Poa annua Finally! Some disease on my greens that is starting to kill some grass. It has been a long disease-less summer with our last broadcast fungicide application made in early April. Since that time we have had diseases come and go; waitea, brown patch, fusarium and probably others too. Through good practices or just dumb luck we have been able to manage these disease without the need for traditional fungicide applications. The only thing remotely anti-fungal would be from my regular phosphite applications and possibly the sulfur contained in my fertilizer applications. As the anthracnose is starting to actually cause widespread damage to the poa I would normally apply a fungicide applications and I'm still not entirely ruling it out. Instead, I am pushing the bentgrass growth to try and get it to fill in the voids. It seems as if the anthracnose is not impacting the bentgrass at this point. Bentgrass is not being killed by the anthracnose When I started over-seeding