It is the first part of February and the winter weather has changed from cool and wet to very cold and dry in the Northwest part of the country. This is the time of year when landscape professionals and golf course superintendents are out surveying their properties to see if there is any turf damage from winter diseases.
One of the most common diseases that turf professionals in the Northwest fight every year is our old friend, snow mold or fusarium patch. Most of our higher cut turf is a combination of perennial ryegrass and poa annua. Poa annua is well known to be highly susceptible to snow mold disease and scouting is an important element in helping to minimize the damage caused by this pathogen. During this time of year, both of these turf species become very susceptible to several disease pathogens, especially when the extended conditions become cool and very wet. These types of weather conditions allow pathogens like snow mold to thrive.
One of the most common, effective, economical ways for the landscape professional to combat this disease is to spray Spectro 90 WDG (if they have the proper spray equipment). Spectro 90 WDG is a very cost effective product to use both as a curative if there is activity and as well as offering extended plant protection. The excellent control of this disease is achieved by combining two trusted and well known industry standards – thiophanate methyl and chlorothalonil - as a finished product. Spray applications of Spectro provide excellent disease control plus an extended amount of plant protection to their maintained turf. Those landscape professionals that either do not have spray equipment or prefer to use rotary spreaders prefer 3336 G to gain control of this disease. Again, 3336 G offers them the ability to use a product that will control and protect their turf sites from several pathogens, including snow mold, for an extended period of time.
During this time of year, most of the golf professionals in the Northwest are busy scouting for active snow mold primarily on their higher maintained areas, such as golf greens and tees. If they do find activity, they too have the option of using a number of products that work very well on snow mold. Another of the Cleary products that is showing excellent results in controlling snow mold is Endorse. This product works very well as a stand-alone product. In areas of high disease pressure, one can achieve even better knock down by using Endorse in combination with a contact fungicide such as Protect or Spotrete.
© Cleary Chemical 2008