Turf Scouting Report, July 23rd

July 23, 2010 Scouting Report
A Brief Break: What me worry? The Kitchen Sink, Pythium blight, Fairy Ring, Summer patch, Brown patch, Dollar spot, Localized Dry Spot, Poa trivialis looks dead, Poa annua is dead, Tim's Biorational study and Nick says Mini-Rhizotron. 

Sometimes we just ask for a break - a break in the weather that is. This week it came. On Monday highs were about 5 degrees lower - we reached 86.5 degrees on Sunshine Course near the practice putting green in Lemont. We were thankful for cloud-cover and waited for the rain - it fell in central Illinois this time around. In response, average soil temperatures at a 2 inch depth dropped a digit below 80 degrees the next day. Natural root mortality should slow a bit... 

Today, we are told, may be our hottest day of summer, 2010. As I drove to work thinking of an early morning email from a Superintendent my eyes turned north just for a moment. Ominous thunderstorms were still probably flooding Wisconsin and parts of Northern Illinois and yet Chicago remained dry. My truck's outdoor temperature reading was 80 degrees at 8 am. Yep, it was to be a hot day. Summer and the dang forecasters continue to be right. So were we though, using experience and history turf professionals were expecting this one. But it hasn't been any summer. This one has remained consistently humid without regard to rainfall. During peak heat stress it is better to be dry. Superintendents will tell you there is no other important ingredient than water. There is not greater blessing, about mid-summer, to be in control of water. My other life, tenor who sings in a choir, will continue - come summer, might just answer a prayer or two.


Click here for the July 23rd Turf Scouting Report