Looking back to last year Glenn was talking about Dollar spot in June, which makes sense, but talking about it in November seems a little odd.
By clicking these links, you can read his Dollar spot FAQs and Managing Dollar spot blogs.
Unfortunately if you are struggling now, or have done this year, then the likelihood is you will be seeing disease pressure again next year (depending on agronomic conditions as always). But the general trend is for ‘better’ Dollar spot conditions (worst human fescue greens manager conditions) year on year inline with the climate trends.
We may well see a lower pressure year for Dollar spot next year, but the trend means we expect to see more high pressure years in the future, especially further South in Devon and Cornwall, but also touching into London and ranging further North.
A really good thing to do if you have seen a lot of damage from Dollar spot is make a plan for next year. What you think worked well, what didn’t, what others around you are doing (they are likely to be in a similar boat to you agronomically) and definitely look at using a Smith- Kerns model for fungicide application timings. Were looking to launch one this Winter so watch this space but which ever version you use will help target those application timings inline with the conditions which push the disease on.
(You can download an excel via an article in this link, but you need to manually add the data for your site, our version will autofill this for your location).
The unseasonably mild temperatures (not helped by the high levels of rain we’ve had) is what has driven on the Dollar spot. If your looking for someone/something to blame for an unreal flush of Dollar spot this November this BBC article points the finger at the jet stream. And notes that many parts of the country have seen record high ‘daily minimum temperatures’ this month.
And that’s the difficult thing, its not scorching hot so that everybody notices, its these warm nights where everyone is tucked up in bed and doesn’t really notice that its exceptionally warm.
Outlook
As I write this the forecast looks to be turning in the favor of disease control, with single figure minimum temperatures predicted widely in the next few days, fingers crossed it doesn’t bounce straight back into warm and wet territory!
Images from Weather Pro suggest the warm nights will have cooled off by this time next week.
