Fusariummy

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...

Does needle tine aeration make  wetting agents redundant? In 2015 I survived the record drought with only Dispatch as a wetting agent on my putting greens. I had changed the timing of my irrigation on greens with much success. I wrote about some changes I made to how I irrigated my greens in this post . Last spring I then hypothesized that maybe I could get by without the use of wetting agents on my greens . So me being me, of course I tried it out. And long story short, I used no wetting agents...almost. The almost part of that statement comes from the fact that I decided to hit up the 3 LDS I had on all my greens with a spot spray of wetting agent which I did. I used the rinsate from an old dispatch jug and sprayed it on these spots. The only LDS on my greens this past year Of course the assistant superintendent at the neighboring course, Matt, called me on my use of wetting agents (he bet me that I would have to use them) and won himself a case of beer (that is if I actually mak...

Last year I changed the way I watered my greens . Instead of watering them last thing each night, I watered them first. The theory was that it would give the stressed out grass water sooner and allow the plant to recover all night long. Although I have no way of proving if this theory was what actually happened, I had the easiest year ever keeping my greens healthy and well watered despite the record drought we experienced. I also did not require any pesticide applications other than phosphite during the periods I required irrigation to keep the grass green proving to me that the period of leaf wetness overnight has little impact on the diseases I face in my climate. Slight moisture stress on the aprons means it's time to start hand watering for the season. Last year I also decided to use cheap wetting agents (Dispatch) on my greens that are designed for fairways. Again, I had the easiest summer ever keeping the grass green. Either these cheaper products are better than we think o...