Scouting Report: September 17th
The putting greens, collars, and first cut were in excellent condition at Wynstone Country Club this week. Collar health has been a big story across the state and I look forward to talking about that in more detail in a future report. Thank you to the superintendents who have shared with me their collar management programs.
Excellent conditions are also display at the BMW Championship at Conway Farms in the north Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Host superintendent Connor Healy recently spoke about the evolution of the course over the last decade.
One of the changes at the facility was improving the plant genetics on the putting greens to 007 creeping bentgrass. The newer plant genetics have come a long way in the last 20–30 years.
Not only has turfgrass germplasm come a long way in the last 30 years, but the equipment that we use to maintain them has also been updated.
Robotic mowers have been development over the last several years and a few facilities in the Chicago area are already employing them. The Cub-Cadet field demonstration at Bryn Mawr Country Club allowed several local superintendents the opportunity to see this machinery in person.
This week continued the dry trend across the majority of the state. Some areas got a little drizzle Wednesday morning as remnants of Hurricane Irma sent a few rain bands across the area.
Many areas of Illinois are running a 50% deficit on rain in the last 30 days. Non irrigated turf is mostly brown where trees are located nearby.
The dry conditions around the Chicago area are finally showing up on the latest drought monitor.
Last week about 35% of Illinois was abnormally dry. That number jumped to 90% this week. As dry as we have been, our friends in SE Iowa have had it worse. That area has been locked in moderate to severe drought for quite some time.
As dry as it has been, it wasn’t too long ago that many on the north side of Chicago had too much rain. Damage from the July flood still lingers throughout the area.
Weeds
No major weed issues right now. Just a reminder to consider control strategies for broadleaf weeds such as dandelion or plantain.
Those further down state with warm-season fairways may start to think about preemergence herbicide applications for annual bluegrass control. If common bermudagrass is problematic, now is also a good time to attack them with HPPD inhibiting herbicides.
Insects
I observed more grub related damage in the Chicagoland area. Skunk digging is a great indicator that white grubs may be present in the turfgrass system.
Products such as Arena or Dylox could help this time of year. Scouting these populations right now can also help with control strategies for next season as well.
For continued reading, Dr. Doug Richmond provided some useful information on white grub management recently.
https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publications/E-271/E-271.html
Diseases
This may have been the first week in years that I didn’t take a picture of a turfgrass disease. I did see dollar spot poke it’s head out on Thursday morning in nontreated rough areas.
I haven’t seen many new dollar spot infection centers this week. Most of the mycelium fluff up I have seen is from older infection scars. In early fall, it only takes a day or two of conducive weather for dollar spot to rev up again.
A golf course superintendent in central Illinois sent me this picture of a creeping bentgrass tee surface. Using a hand lens, the presence of dark acervuli and setae were present on the affected leaves. This indicates that anthracnose may be carving up some turfgrass in that portion of the state.
Probably not disease but interesting.
A darkened area of putting green turf has expressed itself on an older creeping bentgrass putting green. Morphologically, the plants in the darkened area look very similar to the surrounding turf. It could be a different grass type that is responding differently to various inputs. However, that theory doesn’t jive with other observations.
This discoloration was observed on other putting greens at this facility. In this observation, a straight line of darkened turf is present. In some spots, the width of this discoloration is about the size of a cart tire.
In this observation, the discoloration fans out as it move along the slope of the green. All of the discolored turf moves along the slope of the green.
In this instance, smaller defined streaks move along the slope of the putting green surface.
These greens were last fertilized at the end of August and contained nitrogen and iron among other nutrients. The fertilizer was immediately hand-watered in with hoses. Email me at jbenelli@CDGA.org if you have any ideas on what could have caused this. To add to the mystique, these greens were vegetatively established 45 years ago with Toronto (c-15) creeping bentgrass.
Research update
This week the CDGA research manager (Ron Townsend) and I were busy renovating new areas of turf. We are establishing a new putting green surface and a new fairway area. These sites will be used for research beginning in 2018. Thank you to the staff at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club for lending equipment to complete this work.
The putting green is seeded with V-8 creeping bentgrass. Many thanks to our friends at Jacklin Seed for donating this variety of seed.
The fairway surface is being established with Crystal BlueLinks creeping bentgrass. Many thanks to Tee-2-Green for their generous donation of seed to complete this renovation.
Additional thanks to our friends at Reinders, Advanced Turf Solutions, and Burris equipment for helping out.
Looking ahead
Timely rain may fall in the northern and western portions of the state by next weekend. This will help out for seeding out of play areas that are not covered with irrigation systems.
Temperatures may be well above average throughout the entire area this week. The first week fall will feel more like August with highs in the mid-to-upper 80’s.
Towards the end of the week the high heat may be accompanied with high humidity with dew points approaching 70 degrees.
These environmental conditions may be conducive for disease activity. Those that are under afternoon showers would be at the greatest risk.
Something else to consider when high heat and humidity inundate the region this time of year is the length of nighttime. Most fungi come out at night when humidity rises and winds calm. Back on June 21st, the length of nighttime was 8 hours and 45 minutes. Fast forward three months to September 21st and the length of nighttime is now 11 hours and 45 minutes. These fungi now have 3 more hours of favorable environmental conditions to wreck havoc.
Damping off on new establishments would be a concern and I would recommend treating for it to be safe. Dollar spot may also be aggressive in areas that broke through earlier in the season. Those that put down additional nitrogen inputs to recover from various cultural practices may also have a little brown patch popping in select areas.
Twitter: CDGATurfgrassProgram
Email: jbenelli@CDGA.org
