Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Scouting Report for June 24th


The following is the C.D.G.A. scouting report issued by Derek Settle, PhD.                                                  
~~June 24, 2011 Scouting Report~~
A Wild Week of Weather: A 90+ Degree Day, Significant Wind Injury Hits Chicago, New x 3 (Anthracnose, Brown Patch, Pythium Blight), Japanese Beetles in Central IL, Dollar Spot and Spenophorus Catches Tim's Eye

Chicago/Northern Illinois Update: Derek Settle - DSettle@cdga.org/Weather Blog

Not a good week. We endured a bad storm with winds of 70-80 mph this week and it put Chicago's weather on national news. For more photos and information about the storm see http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/. As you can see my introductory list of current disease issues has quickly grown. It means we've crossed the threshold into summer, and this one has already been especially challenging. We've only experienced four days of summer so far and its hard to keep up with new reports. Fluctuating temperatures are met with overly humid environment. This week it meant violent thunderstorms and for me diagnosis of three new diseases - anthracnose basal stem rot, brown patch, and Pythium blight. Fluctuating? On Tuesday the predicted high for Chicago was in the 90s and Sunshine Course in Lemont recorded 91 degrees. By Thursday and Friday our highs were just barely breaking 70 degrees.

Some Chicago courses were closed on Wednesday and power-outages meant the windy city would slow (traffic lights out everywhere). Courses who were littered with debris across entire fairways reported their clean-up was complete by Friday. How these guys do it I do not know.

Click here to view the June 24, 2011 Scouting Report.

Have a good weekend...next week we'll have shorts on again.                                                                                                  Derek Settle, PhD
Director of Turfgrass Program