Fusariummy

OK that title is a bit much but bare with me. It's no secret I'm a fan of rolling. It has a ton of benefits from faster and smoother greens to disease suppression. Ever since I got my first roller back in 2010 we have been rolling daily and cutting every other day or some version of this. Basically we roll the greens 2 times for every mow without significant impacts on playability of the greens. If anything this schedule of greens maintenance results in more consistent playing conditions . The benefits of this are obvious when it comes to mower maintenance. If you use a mower half as much it will require about half the maintenance and last about twice as long. For me it has made it possible for us to use our only triplex mower for both greens and tees . We only need one mower for 2 jobs. One mower, Two sets of cutting units This year we looked at fuel use savings. Aside from the cost of fuel, we are also concerned with the use of fossil fuels and ways we can reduce our reliance...

Spot spraying has been a big part of my IPM program for the last few years. I hypothesized that winter diseases like fusarium on the coast aren't really that bad, we just make them worse by spreading them around . In order to capitalize on this theory I have been spot spraying my greens with traditional fungicides to attempt to limit that spread. During the time that I have been doing this I have never had such success managing my nemesis, fusarium . On the surface, spot spraying seems like a pretty simple and basic tool. See disease, spray it. The problem is that it takes time and if it doesn't help you stretch the intervals that you need to apply a broadcast fungicide spray, then there is little point in doing it. Where spot spraying really becomes a powerful tool is when you count and record the number of disease spots that you treat each day you spot spray. Counting and recording this data doesn't take any additional effort unless you find counting difficult. It does re...

In my last post I outlined how the amounts of fertilizer applied to my golf course has changed over the years due to adopting the MLSN guidelines. In this post I will show some cool animated charts that show how the way I fertilize has changed as I adopted the growth potential model. Special thanks for Micah Woods for making these cool animated charts with my data. Refresh the page if the animation doesn't repeat. This first chart shows the monthly nitrogen applications to my greens side by side going back until 2008. As you can see, as time goes on  the rates get lower but they also get more consistent with less big spikes. Looking back 8 years I can't help but wonder what I was thinking! It is really too bad that I don't have growth rate data going back more than a few years. You can see that in early 2012 I was on a similar track to what I would normally be on. That was until I came across this  article about using growth potential to determine nitrogen rates based on ...

In my last disease update I looked in depth at my nitrogen use on a month by month basis to analyze what I was doing to see if it was the cause of my disease issues. During this process I decided to compile all my fertilizer data going back until 2008. Sadly I cannot find any records from before then. Greens Looking at these charts it is clear that before 2012 and my adoption of the MLSN guidelines that I had no clue what I was doing as far as fertilizer goes. The rates of P and K are widely variable as I was undoubtedly trying to chase cations or something.... All I can do looking back is shake my head but at the time I didn't know any better. I was just following the fertilizer recommendations based on the faulty BCSR . What a waste. It's no wonder that MLSN made so much sense to me when it was released in 2012. Fertilizer didn't make any sense to me! Since that time the rates of all nutrients applied to my greens has gone down. From a high in 2008 to a low in 2016 I ha...

It's no secret that I try pretty hard to reduce the amount of pesticide required on my golf course. I've tried a lot of things and over the years have refined my IPM strategy to only do what makes a real difference. They cost a lot, the public perception of pesticide use is negative, and it is a fun challenge to try and work towards reducing the use of pesticides on my golf course. Things that didn't make a significant impact have been removed from my program. This past summer I went longer than ever between traditional broadcast fungicide applications or about 192 days . In previous years I would consider 60 days something to be proud of. Even so, I still required spot applications of traditional fungicides to stop disease spread and track the disease pressure of dollar spot on my greens. Recently I came across this tweet. A complete year #fungicide free. Aeration, rain and cold haven't made a dent in our no fusarium success. #allorganic #free pic.twitter.com/jX4m...

On the West Coast of Canada we are now well into the time of year where fusarium is the dominant disease on turf. Reflecting on the summer of 2016 I can't help but feel somewhat defeated by turf disease. I required a traditional fungicide for dollar spot for the first time in 4 years on my greens. While this has left me feeling down about my disease management plan this year a closer reflection shows that while I lost the battle to dollar spot, I won the battle with every other turf disease on my course this summer. Looking back at the data, the battles I have had in previous years, what other courses in my area were dealing with I can feel really good about my disease management this past year. To recap the requirement of traditional fungicide on my course this year so far is rather easy. The last fungicide application of the winter was on Feb 22. From that time I was able to keep disease levels at acceptable levels until Sept 4 when I needed to take action against dollar spot. Th...