I made a change in the way I applied our crabgrass preventative this year. I often make subtle changes to the programs to see if we can improve costs, efficiency, or simply the course in general. It seemed to be a home run as it was very efficient, easy to do and allowed me to get into areas that I was unable to using the traditional method. The nuts and bolts are instead of using the booms on the sprayer I used the boom less nozzles on the back. This allowed me to get in close to the trees along the range and one, a spot I was unable to using the booms. About two weeks ago I started noticing these speckles on a few collars and greens.
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| Nursery |
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| 5 green? |
These were in odd places and hard to see during the day in full day light. They were not any disease I recognized and had a distinct pattern to them. I worked with one of my support staff and confirmed my suspicion that these were an over spray from the crabgrass application and essentially a chemical burn. The solution was to apply activated charcoal. These speckles are not to be confused with Dollar Spot which is a fungus that causes lesions in the turf like the picture below.
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| Dollar spot lesions |
The application of the charcoal caused quite a stir since it was obvious something had been applied or spilled. I figured it might make a good post to explain why we turned some sections of the course black. After watering in with fresh water the color has subsided some and maybe the predicted rain will finish the job. If it works it should break down that heavy rate of crabgrass preventative and the turf will recover on its own.
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| 9 green |
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