Dollarspot is a very old turf fungus. It has been a problem for turf managers forever. Recently, there has been a morphing of this disease. Most likely it has come from overuse of systemic fungicides in our business. The older variety of dollarspot began with the appearance of cobweb like fungus on the turf, eventually killing the grass, leaving a silver dollar sized pit behind. It thrived during warm days and cool nights with a lot of dew/ moisture. The disease also thrived under low fertility conditions. What is so amazing about this morphed dollarspot is fertility does not matter anymore. Our turf at OCGC is maintained at very healthy nutrient levels. We are in the midst of conducting chemical resistance testing and reevaluating our control strategies. I have removed generic labeled chemicals from the greens immediately. We are reevaluating if we have to change our sprayer pressure and ground speed to apply more mixture on each green. This dollarspot has been observed on tees, greens and fairways. What is alarming is how rapidly these smaller spots coalesce together and dmage turf to the crown of the plant and the reduced days of control. In checking with plant pathologists and the USGA, dollarspot like ours has been very common this winter in the Mid Atlantic. One thought is it may be due in part to the mild winter not killing off some spores from 2011. We are on top of this situation and will follow up in future blog posts. This disease can be tracked by shoes and mowers.
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