Anthracnose – I’ve tried everything!

I've done all THAT!

In the last blog I looked at why we end up being caught out year on year by Anthracnose and I think it can be pretty simply summarised by "trying to give the golfer what they want for too long".

If we are going to try to deliver tight, lean and quick surfaces well into September we have to ensure it is supported by a good fungicide strategy. Even those will need good support in the form of turf with adequate nutrition.

Biostimulants like Hicure can help but the real wins come in

Adequate nutrition and lifting the cutting height!

This is all easy to say in hindsight but what would I do if I was in this situation now - the beginning of September, the period when Anthracnose can easily become secondary to Microdochium patch and trying to navigate through that maze is no fun.

  • Lift cutting heights - no getting away from this, just get them up.
  • Lift the nutrition - sounds counterintuitive but have a plant too lean is the easiest way to drive disease in my experience
  • Get a Fungicide on - Instrata Elite or FR321 are both great options - you're going to want to ensure you are under good levels of protection if you're already struggling and Microdochium patch is just around the corner, so get ahaead of the game.
  • Remember that a Fungicide application will only ring fence the uninfected turf at this stage so it will appear to get worse before it gets better.
  • Apply amino Acids during periods of stress
  • Drop a cut and roll
  • Avoid cutting if its soft or wet

Always prevention is better than cure but with this challenge the prevention starts months before the problem. We need to keep the plant as free of stress as possible through the season which is tough when the customer seems to enjoy the surfaces when they are on the edge.

Best of luck but if you're looking for more help, I've tried to pull all of the antracnose videos and articles into one place for you. You can find that by clicking here.

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