Fusariummy

Understanding soil moisture math makes managing poa in extreme heat a lot easier. Temps were 42C when I took this pic last summer You would think having a digital moisture meter would make irrigating a golf course easier. For the most part I think it does but I have also seen some subtle ways that turf managers have started using moisture meters that I think actually make our lives more difficult. Before we could accurately measure the soil moisture we were left to essentially guess. We had to use our limited powers of observation to make judgement calls on how much moisture we needed to apply. We would irrigate at night, and top up any visibly dry areas with a hose. We would then have to go out again in the afternoon to top of the additional areas that had dried out over the day. The only real way to tell if something needed more water was to look and see if the grass was wilting.  It was more difficult to determine if we were over-watering. There's a big difference in the amount ...

In my two previous posts I talked about how one might want to fertilize and plan maintenance during these times of high uncertainty. It is my opinion that reacting strongly very quickly with the ability to reduce restrictions as time goes on and uncertainty decreases will be the best way forward for many facilities. Here I will discuss some hypothetical situations and things I have learned from years of irrigating golf courses by myself. Also, please allow me to venture into the hypothetical realm for a bit because it seems that most resources that I have read are very conservative and still in denial of what we might be facing here. I hope I'm wrong and that no one needs to use any of the things I'm about to describe. For many, they will possibly have almost no resources for the coming year and this could be made worse if this drags on for more than a few weeks or months. While most are currently concerned about getting the spring grass growth cut, what will happen when drough...

I get it. I talk a lot about turf disease and fertilizer but it is only because I think that the two things are closely related. More specifically, I think the amount and types of diseases on our grass are closely related to how fast the grass is growing. Not too shabby From what I have seen over the past few years of intense growth rate monitoring and reduction in fungicide use is that if we can grow that grass at the right rate, we can reduce the amount of disease significantly. The trouble is that it isn't that easy to figure out what is the right speed. Further complicating matters is that if you add too much fertilizer, you cannot take it back and are stuck with grass that is either growing too fast which can lead to all sorts of issues at certain times of the year. I have used the Growth Potential mathematical model to predict nitrogen needs, clipping volume and many other things to try and help me get it right and each year that I further refine my fertilizer timing and rate...

In my last post I discussed how too much aerification might be a bad thing and wondered if more is better or if there is an ideal amount of compaction that we can maintain to maximize soil health and help us reduce the inputs that we currently require to maintain our putting greens. Inputs like sand, fertilizer, tines, fungicide and water. I then shared how my greens have never performed better based on some anecdotal observations. Yesterday I decided that if I was going to try and aerifiy less or not at all that I would need to measure the things that aerification is supposed to manage so that I can track their change over time. Simply not doing something without knowing that it's working is simply a dumb thing to do. As usual, there were a ton of products that I needed to buy to figure out this kind of hokus pokus but then I remembered that I'm not doing super precise science here. I want to get a general idea of how my greens perform and relate that to my observations on ho...

Have you ever noticed a disease outbreak immediately following aerification? I'm pretty sure most people have and this is why it is common practice to spray a fungicide before aerifying. Why does this happen? I always blamed the disease outbreak on the mechanical stress we put the grass under. I also noticed that the abrasive practices used to drag the sand into the aeration holes would spread the disease like crazy. Fusarium Spread from verticutting after aerification Niels Dokkuma from the Koninklijke Nederlandse Golf Federatie visited my course in February of 2017 to see what I was doing to reduce the pesticide use on my golf course because the Netherlands are facing an almost complete ban on pesticides in 2020 so they need to learn whatever they can to avoid disaster. He asked me a seemingly simple question. "Do you think aerification makes disease worse?" Of course I agreed with him and went into discussion about how we spread the disease around and the mechanical st...

Often when we search for solutions to our pest problems we are presented with the best most effective solution. Obviously this is what we would expect, especially when coming from a consultant or expert. No one wants to recommend something that might not really work that good right? Typically the best solution is the one that provides the best control. What if we have other criteria? Doesn't true IPM practices demand alternative actions? Case in point this summer I had a particularly bad outbreak of Cyanobacteria on my putting greens. I did some quick research and the main recommendation I found was to spray cholorthalonil. Great. A simple and relatively cheap solution. The only problem is that I have set some rather stringent EIQ goals for pesticide use. One light application of chlorothalonil would use up half of my yearly budgeted EIQ. I needed another option. Chlorothalonil would only be used in a worst case scenario. I would continue to research options and closely monitor th...

I've been thinking a lot about moss lately. My casual observations on my moss study have been very interesting so far this year. The small study green had zero moss when the study began this spring but had a history of heavy moss infestation in the past. Obviously this was the perfect spot to study moss. The only problem I've had so far this year is that almost no moss has developed on the putting green at all! What the hell? Moss is losing the battle here in early May Well as always I have a few thoughts and observations to share that could explain why. Who knows? What I am thinking is that moss is affected by traffic or wear only at certain times of the year. Early this spring and summer I noticed that the existing moss on my putting greens was dying. It was black and basically being taken over by the turf. I was "wearing" my greens daily with a lightweight roller. By the time summer had arrived the moss had all but disappeared in the typical areas on my putting gre...