InteractiveTurf Newsletter newsletter@interactiveturf.com                                                                                                                                      October 31, 2005 Warm Fall, Cold Winter?? Weather September: Warm and dry . . . again!!! September was an extraordinarily warm month, representing the 2nd warmest in northern IL since records started in 1895. In fact, if it wasn't for a late cool front falling through on the 29th, it would have been the first September ever recorded in Chicago where every day reached the 70 degree mark. The trend extended throughout the state as everyone was 4-6 degrees F above average for the month. September 2005 will also be remembered as another dry one as the drought was worsened in northern Illinois with only 62% of the normal rainfall falling in Chicago. The continued drought made March - September the driest EVER on record for many sites in northern Illinois, (what "Dust Bowl" years?). Central and southern Illinois got slight relief from the drought with 125 - 150% of normal precipitation falling in Peoria, Bloomington, and Champaign. In reality, however, that extra 25 - 50% only put an inch or so dent in the 12-14 inch deficit felt in places like Peoria. October: Warm and dry. . . again!!! -- (showing off my skill of cut and paste) -- According to NWS data, October was a mere 2.2 degrees above normal in Chicago. The first week was extremely warm with high temperatures near 90, breaking records in some areas of northern Illinois. Precipitation again was on the low side in northern Illinois (about 40-50% below average) as a stagnant jet stream kept the high pressure in and the gulf moisture out. Click here to go to the most recent version of the NOAA drought monitor map, which you will note is still a nice shade of brick red for much of northern Illinois. The average date of first frost (low temp below 32 F) should occur in northern Illinois anywhere from October 7th - 14th, however this year the official NWS dates where much later (see table below). Pay special attention to the NWS frost date for Lemont, (which comes from Midway airport), as it is another record breaker. At 226 consecutive days, this was the longest span that temperatures exceeded freezing (i.e. growing season) at Midway. -- chalk another one up for 2005! -- Temperatures at O' Hare fell below freezing 2-3 weeks earlier. According to the data coming into IT, frosts occurred earlier for the most part, and overall temperatures were much cooler. The discrepancy is due to the location of the reporting weather stations. Stations reporting into IT are much closer to the ground and over turf, instead of over concrete "heat islands" like most NWS stations. Some in Chicago noted light patchy frost on October 16th, when clear skies and a cool high pressure system dominated. These light radiation frosts are most common in open grassy areas, and occur despite above freezing air temperatures, which is due to cooler soil temperatures causing the turf surface to lose enough heat to dip below freezing. 2005 First Frost Date Location National Weather Service (Temp) Interactive Turf (Temp) Rockford October 22nd (31 F) October 23rd (26.0 F) Glenview October 29th (31 F) October 26th (31.6 F) Elmhurst October 28th (31 F) October 23rd (30.6 F) Aurora October 28th (31 F) October 23rd (25.5 F) Lemont November 10th (31 F) October 23rd (25.0 F) Peoria October 28th (31 F) October 28th (32.0 F) Carbondale October 26th (30 F) October 26th (29.7 F) Growing Season Weather: Now that the growing season is finally over, we can take a brief look back at the year that was and summarize why many turf managers had a tough time (see warm and dry again statements above). 2005 will be remembered as a historic drought year for much of northern and central Illinois. Depending on location, the 19 to 21 inch rainfall totals represent the 3rd or 4th driest January - October period ever recorded, and somewhere between 11 and 13 inches below normal. If the irrigation was running efficiently than turf managers were able to handle the deficit, but if there was a hole or deficiency in the system than it was magnified. Some superintendents could only stare at their irrigation intakes and wonder when the water was going to run out, while others had quality issues come to a head as salts and bicarbonates built up to intolerable levels as the ponds recessed. Water conservancy concerns led many to stop irrigation on rough areas, let them go dormant, and take their chances that at the very worst they'd have to do some overseeding (which many roughs came back). With the water quality issues, Randy and I saw several more cases of black layer this year, as the surface interface became sealed off and went anaerobic. In a continual trend, LDS and fairy rings have become much more of a problem in northern Illinois, and the conditions of 2005 only brought them to the forefront even more. Dry and cool wouldn't have been so bad, but the drought was accompanied by a lot of heat. Of course, if you ask turf managers in the northeastern U.S., they'd ask you to give hot and wet conditions a try. Here though, the global warming theory got another boost as temperatures soared to levels that many compared to the brutal summer of 1995. Days above 90 F in Lemont reached an astounding 41 for the year, with 104 reaching over 80 F (see chart below). Just for kicks and to keep up the steady barrage of numbers in this newsletter, I looked up the average for HOTlanta and found 39 days above 90 F, which in Lemont we would have beat. However, HOTlanta also had a warmer than normal summer with 57 total days above 90 F (that doesn't even touch the average from the last 10 years at Carbondale). The Fall of 2005, as noted earlier, really wasn't very fall-like at all, yielding many more days above 90 than average and compounding our heat surplus. Days Above 90 F in 2005 & Comparison to NWS Averages Lemont Glenview Peoria Rockford Carbondale Month 2005 Average Diff. 2005 Average Diff. 2005 Average Diff. 2005 Average Diff. 2005 Average Diff. March 0 0 0 0 0 -- 0 0 -- 0 0 -- 0 0 -- April 0 0 0 0 0 -- 0 0 -- 0 0 -- 0 0 -- May 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 1 -1 0 0 0 2 2 0 June 15 5 +10 11 4 +7 13 6 +7 8 3 +5 14 13 +1 July 10 8 +2 6 6 0 12 10 +2 6 6 0 17 18 -1 August 7 5 +2 5 5 0 9 8 +1 5 3 +2 21 19 +2 September 8 2 +6 4 1 +3 7 3 +4 4 1 +3 15 9 +6 October 1 0 +1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- 1 1 0 Totals 41 21 +20 26 18 +8 41 27 +14 23 14 +10 70 62 +8 *Note: Due to rounding errors, not all columns necessarily "add up". Winter Weather Outlook Enough of the past, let's look toward the future. The predictions for the winter of '05-'06 are murky and really depends on who or what you read (there's a surprise). If you attended the talk by Doug Sisterson from Argonne, he stated that the smallest land mass that long-term weather models are suited for would be the size of the state of Illinois. So knocking down a true Chicago or central or southern IL forecast is next to impossible. Another big problem in particular with this year's forecast is that there is not an event like an El Nino or La Nina (or the Pinta or Santa Maria for that matter) playing a major climactic role. "Shorter term climate fluctuations that are best predicted week-by-week are expected to play the dominate role on the weather patterns this winter," says Jim Laver, director of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. The latest NOAA forecast (as of October 20) is very noncommittal for the Midwest and East, as you can see from the maps below (evidently another hurricane is hitting Texas this winter though). Click here to go to the NOAA winter forecast. Keeping the short term fluctuation thought in mind, the latest winter outlook I've seen is from Gilbert Sebenste of Northern Illinois University put out on November 9th. He is looking more at the impact that the early snow cover over southern Canada will have for northern Illinois. He stated, quite correctly so far, that it would end the 60 and 70 degree weather that we were seeing at the beginning of November and may lead to our first snow in the not so distant future... (that future is November 16th as the first snow of the season is falling outside my window and the wind chills hover somewhere in the teens). Dr. Sebenste also states that this early southern Canada snow coverage, if it continues, will lead to a much closer to average winter, which would be considerably colder than last year (which was the 4th warmest on record). Amount of snowfall for the winter is still up in the air in all the forecasts I have seen for the Midwest. Diseases With the snow falling, it's time to talk about snow mold applications. For the most part, large scale outbreaks of gray snow mold occur here about once every 5-6 years. But when it happens it happens big (see picture below). Therefore most in northern Illinois will put PCNB out on the fairways, and protect greens and tees with something a little less phytotoxic like the Daconil + GT combination or Medallion, both of which have been rated very high in fungicide trials. As for timing, I know of a few superintendents that have already gone out with their applications, but the mantra is to apply as close to prolonged snow cover as possible. With that being very difficult to forecast, I would think anytime after the weather turns cold in mid to late November should be sufficient. It's also recommended that a fungicide be reapplied if the snow melts off during the winter, but since we are right on the line of "snow mold country" in northern Illinois I don't think that would be as much of an issue for us. Click here to go to the snow mold control and alert pages. 2000- The Last Great Snow Mold Outbreak of Chicago Dollar spot finally started occurring on bentgrass around middle to late September as temperatures moderated somewhat. These outbreaks for the most part were not very severe in nature, although some courses with concerns of fungicide resistance might have experienced otherwise. Generally speaking the dollar spot fungus was just as strained as the grass was this season by the heat and drought, which as most will remember is in stark contrast to last year's weather and disease severity. Not a good year for our fungicide trials, but a welcome relief for the practitioner. One trial that did work out this year was our trials evaluating early spring fungicide applications for controlling dollar spot. Some of the early treatments had quite a lasting effect on the severity and incidence of dollar spot. Also we noticed that the level of fungicide resistance in the dollar spot population seems to really matter for the amount of efficacy that can be drawn from this spring preventative strategy. More details will be posted on the website and also presented at my Illinois Professional Turf Conference talk on Thursday, December 1st from 2:15 - 2:40 PM entitled "Dollar Spot: Should You Be an Early Bird?" (yes that was a shameless plug). Left: Symptom from alleged Glomus Right: Gumming up of thatch layer on right. Put cursor on right picture to see what we are observing in gummed up that layer. Spotty outbreaks of basal rot anthracnose, summer patch, and cool season brown patch also occurred during September and October. However, due to the dry weather no disease broke out in serious epidemic type proportions. One thing that we did see again in early October near the lake was the "new" mycorrhizae type disease, which puzzles us because we had only seen it previously during June and July. We first saw these symptoms last year, and have seen them twice again this year. The two courses in Chicagoland and the other in Bloomington were newly renovated greens that had been treated with methyl bromide. A thick mat of fungal biomass seems to be accumulating in the thatch layer, and smelling as Randy puts it like wet, fishy dog food (see pictures above). This mat seems to cause symptoms by either raising the turf enough so it scalps, blocking up the pore space so water and nutrients can't seep through, or clogging up and damaging the roots' vascular system. The fungus we believe is causing the problem is a Glomus species, which is normally thought of as a beneficial mycorrhizae species. In this case, however, we think the Glomus is a "mycorrhizae gone wild" perhaps because there is little competition by other fungi in this sterilized root zone, and the fungus is just a little too "happy". Similar to an algal bloom, the fungus gets out of control and erupts a multitude big (in relative terms) spores from the roots it inhabits, perhaps damaging root cells and in turn the plants. Insects With the drought conditions of this year, annual white grubs were not nearly the problem they were in year's past because rough areas were simply too dry to allow the grubs to survive and pupate. With most bentgrass areas treated, Japanese and masked chafer beetles had little area to lay eggs. So there is something to celebrate about a drought! Cutworms and sod webworms picked up the slack and took advantage of the heat and long fall, however, as an estimated 3-5 generations progressed through Illinois. Irrigated golf course greens, tees, and fairways incurred a lot of bird pecking damage well into the first of October. Most of the activity was limited to tees and fairways, where insecticide applications for cutworms and other foliar feeders had not been made. Weeds This was definitely the year for the warm season weeds including crabgrass and the sedges. The extended heat and drought caused the cool season turfs to wane and the C4 plants to thrive. For an example of this take a look at this picture from a seed trial we did here at Golf House this summer looking at moisture and seed coating effects on germination and establishment. The only green plants in the picture are bermudagrass and the slightly more drought tolerant tall fescues - of course this was the low irrigation plot. See you at the IPTC!   ++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks for your support of this, as well as all of our research programs, Randy Kane CDGA Director of Turfgrass Programs Midwest Golf House 11855 Archer Ave Lemont, IL 60439 630-257-8126 Lee Miller CDGA Manager of Turfgrass Research Midwest Golf House 11855 Archer Ave Lemont, IL 60439 630-257-2005 x.106