May Microdochium Patch

As you can imagine I've had loads of calls this month about Fuz and should we be spraying for it?

Throughout the month my advice has been to leave it alone and stick to your normal May gameplan after all the weather will pick up surely - won't it?

Did you know? I've recorded this blog as a podcast so you can listen to it wherever you are. Just click play below. It's as simple as that!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KV49e6Jocnakey4dhKIWi

As you can imagine once I've engaged with the challenge the pictures continue to appear on my Whatsapp and I continue to wish I had advised early at the first call to apply FR321 the one box solution that we've put together for exactly these type of situations.

However I didn't advise that as I didn't foresee a May like this. We all know how wet it's been but I feel like we've underestimated the impact of the lower temperatures.

Below is the Average temperature for May for my home address since 1984. As you can see the average temp for May should be around 12C but we are sitting (using a forecast to fill the month in) at 9.8C.

To put that into perspective our average temp for:

  • October 11.5c
  • November 8c
  • December 5.5c

May has been closer to November temperatures that October temperatures. So we've been right in that perfect Fuz temperature range and no shortage of leaf moisture to add to the equation.

So how unusual is this? What are the agronomic odds? Check out my and Henry's Podcast to see what the Agronomic odds is all about.

In the 38 years I have documented here only 2021 and 1996 have averaged below 10c so the odds are pretty long 18:1 in fact!

So what to do now?

As it's rumbled on for a while now and assuming you've managed to present good surfaces then I'd steer away from the fungicide now - after all the weather has to break for the positive soon?

However if you're planning to Verti-cut, topdress and push those surfaces harder than you'd like then I'd be applying FR321 which is a great combo of the Systemic longevity of Heritage and the spore population knock down of Medallion all coupled with Ryder to give a great colour uplift. It's perfect for this temperature range that we seem to be stuck in!

FR321 blog with a load of data in it here.......

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