Boy, its about time I updated this thing!  The last two times i've tried to do this my computer has crashed...gotta love technology.  

July has not been kind to our annual bluegrass.  The high heat and high humidity have caused enourmous fungus pressure.  It doesn't take me long to find up to 4 different kinds of fungus while out on patrol.  (summer patch, brown patch, anthracnose and dollar spot)  All of which can be controlled, however it is extremely costly to do so.  By my calculations, we would need to treat around 15 acres of grass, at a cost of $315 an acre at 14 day intervals for coverage.  15*315*2=$9450 dollars.  Oh, did I mention that only covers the first three fungi...there is a second application needed at 7-14 day intervals for dollar spot.  Believe me, I would love to treat the fairways preventatively...maybe I would be able to sleep at night if we did, however its just not cost effective to do so.  No one is more upset about how the course looks than me...trust me...or just ask my wife.  I haven't exaclty been a pleasant person to be around these last few weeks.  

Couple that with the fact that we have had more insect pressure than we have before.  Take 2008 and 2009 added together, multiply that by 50 and that's the kind of insect pressure we've been dealing with.  Something about this winter was very conducive to billbug and black turfgrass ataenius survival.  The damage around 5,7,8,15 and 18 greens, 8,9,10,11 tee's and 15 fairway is for the most part caused by these little grubs.  The delima we face in this situation is how to control them.  The same chemical we use to control white grubs will control both of these bugs, however it needs to be sprayed in late may and then you run the risk of your control running out and not controlling what is historically a worse problem, annual white grubs.

Then couple that with the abiotic stress that our annual bluegrass has had to endure this summer and you can understand the damage.  As a matter of fact, the more I think about it, we came out of this very well all things considered.  Here is an excellent superintendent blog describing this stress. http://sugarcreekgolfcourse.blogspot.com/  Find July 20th's entry titled summer decline of annual bluegrass.  It perfectly describes exactly what we are going through.  

To recap this extremely long-winded post, if I could describe our "worst case scenario" this would be pretty darn close to it.  High heat + high humidity + plus soil saturating rains + very little air movement = plant death.  The good news is, on an old course like ours, some turf experts believe there are as many as 19000 dormant annual bluegrass seeds just waiting for september to hit so they can germinate...we are bare or thin in areas in fairways but take solace in knowing it won't be for very long.  We do plan on seeding 1 fairway and any bare areas on tees and aprons with ryegrass...the tough seeding decision isn't so much where to begin as much as it is where to stop.