Snow mold is a turf disease that loves cool wet weather. I'm very familiar with this pathogen from my time in Stockton when the fog would hang around for months at at time. The recent light rains and morning fog is the perfect storm for snow mold to infect the cool season grass on the golf course.
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| Ryegrass collar on #11 green in the early morning hours. |
We closely monitor conditions for disease pressure and scout the course for signs of problems. We've had some dollar spot, another fungal disease, hanging around the greens for most the year and we've kept a close eye on its activity. We noticed the collars just beginning to show a problem on Monday and readied the sprayer and the crew for a treatment on Tuesday morning. The photo above was taken Tuesday morning, so it was a good time to put down some medicine. Most of these spots should heal up quickly.
We will have the threat of this disease for the remainder of our "rainy" season. The entire crew is trained to recognize disease, hydraulic leaks, frost, and weeds. It really helps to have 15 sets of eyes on the turf instead of trying to see it all myself. As you can tell, it doesn't take long for diseases to spread when conditions are favorable.
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