August FAQs 2021

I think most people have been covering holidays and simply trying to keep on top of mowing grass this month.

The damp weather in the South and decent temperatures further north have meant the main challenges have been around keeping on top of grass growth whilst keeping out of the way of the huge amount of golfers who are now enjoying the sport.

It's been a real challenge and one where PrimoMaxx can help.

You can listen to this FAQ whenever you want, just tap the link below.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Kbxy1S2J3XmPzMfLbbWl3

High Growth levels

PrimoMaxx is a commonly used product around the UK and the plant health benefits are clear to all who use it. During these warm spells of high growth it can be used to help reduce the labour needed to keep on top of grass growth or even just reduce the amount of clippings that need to be dispersed after cutting.

There's a whole section here dedicated to blogs about Primo and it's well worth taking a read through to ensure you're getting the best out of it. Link here.....

The key factor for me is to remember that the longevity is closely related to temperature. The warmer it is the shorter it will last, the cooler it is - the longer it will last.

I spend a lot of time talking about greens management and at those low rates the longevity won't be varied much as you only have small variability in rates. On outfield areas you have a much wider range of rates available to you and you can increase longevity by increasing the rate.

BUT doubling the rate will NOT double the longevity, so you're much better tightening or elongating the application windows based on temperature than varying the rate.

Exact longevity is hard to give exact figures for outside areas due to the variables - Soil, Moisture, Grass species, etc

But leaving untreated control plots to establish longevity and then relating that to our GDD calculator is a great place to start.

In short - if you're on a monthly application programme on outfield areas you could probably be getting more out of your investment by looking into GDD.

Brown Patch

I had this image sent to me at the beginning of August as it was something the course manager didn't recognise.

As I pointed out earlier the South of England (where this image came from) has had an unusually damp time of it this year and I suspect the Mild temperatures we get during this period and the prolonged leaf wetness was enough to trigger this.

Map of the UK showing rainfall amounts versus the long term average. The map shows that many northern and western areas have been drier than average, while some areas in the southeast and south have been much wetter than average.

Kate at the Turfgrass disease centre did an ID for us and it looks like we're dealing with Brown patch which is pretty unusual in golf green environments but we do see it in stadium environments in the UK due to prolonged moisture.

Sure enough when we looked a little deeper the worst greens were the more shaded ones that would have seen extended periods of leaf moisture.

When chatting to the course manager about it who had experience of Brown patch from working in the USA he felt that we just didn't see high enough overnight temperatures to get this in the UK.

I beg to differ - it's worth taking a look at this met office blog where once again it looks like a 2021 will go down as 1c warmer than average with some areas seeing for than 50% additional rainfall.

I suspect we are sneaking into brown patch territory with this weather and looking back at the hourly temperatures (below) you can see that we've had prolonged periods this year of really stable temperatures - by that I mean no big fluctuations. Overnight temperatures haven't dropped below 11c on a regular basis until the last week of August. We also haven't seen high temperatures - this stable temperature is perfect for pathogens to develop.

Couple that with a humid, shaded environment and long periods of leaf moisture it hardly surprising we're seeing these problems.

The good news is that both Heritage and Medallion are labelled for Brown patch and whilst I haven't done any trial work on it yet FR321 which is a one box solution combining both products.

CraneFly

I can't leave without mentioning Crane flys - As I speak we are beginning to enter the main hatch period - please keep logging your sightings at PestTracker.

30/8/21

Heres some blogs to help guide your applications but in summary - one month after peak flight gave us improved levels of efficacy than applying at peak flight.

A quick look at the data being reported and we can see that we are moving into that main hatch period already - my message for now - be patient.

Don't forget you can listen to all of my blogs as podcast. It's free and easy. You can find them here.

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