Warm + Rain = Disease

Unfortunately we seem to have slipped into a similar weather pattern to what we had at the beginning of the year.  Last night we had a very noisy thunderstorm come through the area, luckily we only received a half an inch of rain overnight.  Now though, we have had a steady light rain for the past few hours and it doesn't appear to be letting up very soon.  It appears that it may rain off an on for a few more hours.

So far the course is handling the water relatively well, but there are definitely some squishy areas out there.  With the temperatures that are forecasted, this is turning into a superintendents worst nightmare.  Saturated soil, high humidity, and night time temperatures over 70 degress are an ideal breeding ground for turf diseases, especially pythium blight and brown patch. 

Pythium can be a very devastating disease if it goes unchecked and untreated.  So far we have only seen very isolated patches of pythium in our bentgrass areas, because they have all been treated preventatively for it.  Monday we did have quite a bit of the disease in the intermediate rough, and for the first time since I've been here at Calumet we went out an specifically sprayed the intermediate rough for pythium.  Given the current forecast, it was a good decision.

Brown patch is a different story though.  After the rain on Sunday, brown patch really kicked into gear, and many of our wet low areas got hit, especially #7 about 50 yards from the green.  Brown patch is typically not devastating to turf like pythium is, but all the fairways were treated with fungicide on Tuesday so the disease is no longer active.  The affected areas should be fully recovered in a week or two.