Fusariummy

Happy February! Still no synthetics here! If you would have asked me last September if it was possible to grow Poa annua putting greens without the use of synthetic pesticides over the winter I would have called you crazy. It is now almost March and I have 3 greens that have gone without synthetic pesticides since September and one green since June! The toughest part of the fusarium season has past but it is far from over! For the most part I feel that the overall disease pressure this fall and winter has been low. We had an extended dry period this fall and the winter wasn't that cold or wet. February has been very mild and the turf has really started to grow. A little R. cerealis showing up again Currently the only troublesome turf diseases thy are active are M. nivale and R. cerealis . Tees and fairways have a moderate amount of fusarium and the approaches have an extreme case! The greens have had almost no fusarium activity all winter but I did apply two fungicide treatment...

GOT FUSARIUM? It would probably be an understatement to say that the fusarium activity levels are high these days. The above picture illustrates one of the more extreme attacks currently on my course. Last week while scouting for disease I made an interesting observation that I thought I would share. Typical tee disease levels, no pesticides of any kind ever, oh yeah, hasn't seen direct sun since Sept! As I only apply fungicides to my putting green surfaces there are varying levels of fusarium activity throughout the course but the areas that are hit the hardest are the approaches about 3m from the front of each green. In these areas the fusarium activity is extremely high. In Past years I would also see these disease levels on the tees and most fairways but this year there is very little fusarium so far.  8th approach, full sun So why are my approaches being hit so hard while nothing else is being touched? The maintenance on my approaches is virtually identical to my fa...

With all my talk about nitrogen lately I thought it would be cool to compare how different methods of nitrogen fertilization would look. As nitrogen is one of the few things that if we add more the plant will use more the differences in application rates can have a varied affect on plant health and response. The following chart illustrates the same amount of nitrogen applied per season but at different rates at different times of the growing season. Now we know that the blue line is what the plant actually needs so if the lines from the other application methods are above the blue line you are essentially over applying nitrogen and if the lines are below the blue line you are under applying. Over applying and under applying both have their purpose in turfgrass management but they also carry consequences. I read somewhere that a visual turf response can be seen at nitrogen rates as high as 6Kg N/100m2 per season! Currently my rates are about 1.4Kg N/100m2 per season. So essenti...

One of the very first spreadsheets I made on Google docs was my equipment use record. This spreadsheet keeps track of all equipment use on the golf course and allows me to filter the data so I can intensely scrutinize every detail. The basis for this spreadsheet and pretty much all of my other spreadsheets is the form. The benefit of using a form is that it allows you to keep the data consistent and easy to input into the spreadsheet. Consistent data is extremely important when you decide to filter and sort it out later on. Even the slightest difference such as an extra space can keep the record from working. The first step is to create a new spreadsheet in Google drive or docs and name it accordingly. I call my sheet "PHGC Equipment Records". I use this naming scheme for all my spreadsheets to keep things consistent. Once you have done that the next step is to create a form. Goto: Tools--> Create a Form Creating a form takes a little forethought and careful planning. This...

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...

It's that time of year again. Many of us use the slow winter months to look over our records to analyze this past season and plan for next season. In order for this to work it is important to have good meaningful data. Good data comes from good data collections which can sometimes be a challenge. In the next few weeks I plan on sharing my experience with using Google docs for all of my operations record keeping the past few years and will give step by step instruction on how to setup good meaningful records that will allow you to easily analyze all parts of your operation. A few years back I was searching for a good record keeping solution. The old way of keeping records on paper had very little use to me as it was clumsy and very difficult to easily analyze the data. For me there is no point of collecting data if it cannot be manipulated to tell a story or paint a picture. I came across many companies that offered record keeping software and tried a number of them out for dem...

Well it has been almost two weeks since my last post about yellow patch . Initially I was panicking due to the many unknowns that I was facing. I had never seen yellow patch ( R. cerealis ) damage turfgrass. Shortly after publishing that blog post I was inundated with information about the disease from other superintendents. Apparently I'm not the only one out there having difficulty with this disease on my greens!  7th green Yellow Patch Nov 24 7th green Yellow Patch Dec 06, same location as above picture. A fellow superintendent suggested to me that I try a nitrogen application. I immediately went out and sprayed an application of Ammonium sulfate at 0.05kg N/100m2 or about 9kg for all my putting greens or about $8 worth of product. This was basically the accumulated nitrogen needs for the turf for the winter months according the the growth potential calculations for my climate. If this proves to be a practical and effective means of control for this disease that would...