Another Post About The Weather

It would be nice to post something good about the weather, but I have not had the opportunity.  This last batch of rain (0.90 inches last night, 0.10 today) is exactly what the course did NOT need.  We have stressed the importance of being able to control the amount of water on the course during warm periods of weather.  Last week we were fortunate to have been able to do that, but since Friday we have lost control of the amount of moisture on the course and it is showing.

I have mentioned before that the most damaging disease pathogens are active during periods of warm moist weather-usually temperatures that stay above 68 degrees at night. (see last year's post: Uninvited Guest)  Over the past 10 days, the lowest temperature we have recorded on our weather station is 68.3 degrees, and six of those days never dropped below 70 degrees.  To make matters worse, we have had 6.3 inches of rain, from 5 rain events over the past 7 days.  This creates the perfect environment for pathogens that cause pythium and brown patch diseases.  We have seen only a small amount of brown patch, and today we have seen pythium on a few fairways.  Pythium is the disease that caused the damage in the fairways last year as well.  We are trying to get a spray out today on these areas that will contain it, but it needs to go down when it is not raining.  We are waiting for the rain to stop.  Removing water from the surface will help with this disease, and our crew was out today with squeegees to remove water from the fairways.  The picture above is from the 16th fairway where some of the pythium was found.  We are not able to remove this water because it is still draining from the pond over-flow, making it difficult to remove the disease pressure.

Carts are restricted for Thursday, and rain is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, which creates the possibility of cart restrictions tomorrow.  Pythium is a disease that will spread by the tires of a golf cart.  This picture was taken in 11 fairway.  If a cart were to drive through this, the disease would spread along the track of the cart tire.