Once again the Christmas period proved to be a tricky time time manage Microdochium patch in the UK. For a lot of turf managers the high temperatures and long periods of leaf moisture can add up and cause some real challenges. This is nothing new (see below links to past Christmas blogs). Whilst the Christmas… Read More Santa brings high disease pressure again!

In this month’s “On the horizon” Henry and I speak at some length about how the climate is warming and how Christmas is unlikely to be snowy! Well, as soon as we put the Podcast out, it goes super cold and starts to snow. The timing couldn’t be any better! Speaking of timing, I’ve recently… Read More Early Snowfall

After telling everyone on the Podcast that these Autumn / Winter months are getting warmer, I was beginning to feel pretty nervous as the last month has felt pretty chilly to me! I’ve had a look back at the data to see how we’ve compared back to 2008 – 2011 period just to see how… Read More How cold has November 2021 been?

One of the things Henry and myself have been chatting about “On the Horizon” is the concept of sub 2c stopping hours. It’s a concept we’ve developed to help us understand when we start to see weather that is cold enough to slow down the development of Microdochium patch and how variable it is across… Read More Has October 2021 been a cold one?

Just finished setting up the ICL / Syngenta at the 2021 Festival of Turf event and it was hot one. What I couldn’t work out though was – have I gone soft because I don’t work outside any more (no need to answer that) or is this level of heat normal?? This kind of thing… Read More Festival of turf heat – how unusual is it?

It’s here at last – the highlight of the years golfing calendar – The Open and looking at the weather headlines it’s set to be a scorcher. I love The Open because we get to see golf played on some great natural sites and the weather plays a big role in how the event pans… Read More The Open and the temperature is picking up

It feels too soon to be talking about managing heat stress but here we are after a crazy cold Spring and we’re now seeing consecutive days of high temperatures. To get a feel for how unusual this is I’ve pulled some data together from Yorkshire (the home of Henry from ICL) and the south coast… Read More Heat management strategies for turf

I’ve been doing my monthly FAQ’s for a year now and since 2021 is the year I’ve decided to get ahead of the game and communicate in advance of the problem rather than after the event then I thought it was worth reviewing last years questions that came up and I hope that will put… Read More June 2021 – What to Expect

So I think we’ve all been very aware of just how dry and cold it has been this April. Growth has hardly started, surfaces are drying out and nothing seems to be happening. So whilst we’ve all been struggling to get things moving as we’d like I asked myself the question – how unusual is… Read More Dry and cold April 2021