The last few days have been hot and humid and it looks like after the weekend cool down we'll be back to more of the same. While this weather is miserable to work in, it actually doesn't require us to water too much. We haven't run the irrigation overnight since Sunday and we are catching up in some of the areas where we've dried out the last few weeks. The wetting agent we've sprayed is helping a lot and we have two new guys (both named Mike and both with a lot of experience on golf courses) that have been doing a great job hand watering hot spots. Hand watering may sound pretty simple, but it's nice to have experienced guys doing it because grass turns brown for a lot of reasons, and if the guy watering doesn't know why it's chlorotic he may actually do more harm than good. One example is if grass is yellow or brown because it has disease (anthracnose is a disease that can like wilt) you do not want to water it because you'll just make the problem worse.
Another reason why some grass brown is because of the growth regulator we sprayed on fairways to reduce the amount of annual bluegrass (poa) in our fairways. The damage done to the poa won't kill it, simply stunt the growth to the point where the bentgrass can out compete it. As the poa adjusts the the growth regulator it will return to its normal color but not its normal growth habits. The bentgrass is already growing over the top of the poa because of this stunted growth; it's pretty exciting to see and will result in much better fairways.
Chlorotic poa as a result of paclobutrazol application.
Bentgrass (the lighter green, healthy grass) winning.
Ian
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