Fusariummy

Got some time? This one might take a while! A very big part of any IPM program is turfgrass nutrition and arguably the biggest part of turfgrass nutrition is nitrogen. Since starting out in the turf industry I have always struggled with how much nitrogen I needed to apply to keep my turf healthy. What even is healthy turf? Is this turf healthy? For me healthy turf is a playing surface that requires the least amount of inputs and money to achieve the desired playing conditions. To achieve healthy turf I start with the basics and work towards the more complicated stuff. There's not much point in focusing on the details if you don't have the major things in check. Obviously the major things you need to grow healthy turf are air, water and sunlight. After these things comes soil fertility or turfgrass nutrition. I have always felt that nitrogen was the biggest part of turf nutrition but I had no real way of easily knowing what the turf required. The other required plant nutrients w...

This summer I set out a disease management plan aimed at controlling Fusarium Patch with as little traditional pesticides as possible. So far this plan has been very successful at controlling M. nivale but in the past 2 weeks I have been caught off guard by another disease, R. cerealis or yellow patch or cool season brown patch or, or or or etc. This is typically the worst that I have seen yellow patch in previous years. Historically R. cerealis or yellow patch has never been a disease of concern for me. Last year I wrote a post outlining how I have never had to do anything for this disease on my greens ever. Since writing that post I have learned a lot about disease management. While the message remains the same my experience has changed quite a lot. When I wrote that post I was still regularly using traditional pesticides as needed on my putting greens. I was using a lot less than in previous years but I was nowhere near the lack of pesticide use that I am at today. Sinc...