Review your season 2011

Well the season is slowing down with daylight savings coming to an end (some states anyway) days are getting shorter winter is coming. good for some bad for others. Now is the time to start doing a review of the summer that was. There were plenty of disease issues over the summer and disease pressure was higher than normal especially early spring with the amount of rain we had. If you have the time think about the season and review on what worked and what didn’t work for you. Ask yourself the following questions (this does not just apply to diseases but to all aspects of turf management):

 

  1. What were my main issues, when did they arise, were they earlier than usual
  2. Were the issues caused by nature or by putting the turf under undue stress
  3. Measures taken to fix the issues did they work
  4. Was there anything you could have done better
  5. Were you more proactive or reactive with the summer i.e did you have a preventative program or just deal with the issues when they arose
  6. Did you utilise a broad range of control options for the issue (e.g different products, cultural practices, fertility). Specifically for fungicides did you rotate resistance groupings enough
  7. What can you do next season to reduce the issues
  8. Does the course need to be altered in any way to help (i.e does drainage have to be put in or fixed, is building a new green/tee possible)

There is alot more of a list which I could write but this is just to give you an idea on topics to think about.

 

Keep in mind with the disease pressure this year fungicides you used had to deal with high pressure situations and where expected residual was normally 21-28 days you may have only got 10-21 days control for systemic products or even less with contact fungicides. The fungicide had not failed but more so the pressure was too high to give you control expected.

 

If you would like some help with reviewing your specific situation please do not hesitate to contact me either via this blog or email zreikat@campbellchemcials.com.au

 

Regards

Nadeem Zreikat