Whilst astronomical autumn doesn’t officially commence until the 22nd September for me (and for meteorological purposes) the 1st September is the beginning of autumn.
The equation is a simple one for fungal activity as in the image at the top of the blog, cooling temperatures + raising moisture levels are ideal.
A great time of year if you are interested in mushrooms like me (only a passive observer I don’t eat the ones I find – no mushrooms were harmed in the making of this blog).
September is a big « threat month » for fungal turf diseases.
Historically its where the UK & Irelands biggest disease issue microdochium patch kicks off in earnest.
Complicating the situation is two of the other big turf disease threats can still very much be in the game.
Anthracnose and dollar spot can also take advantage of the season, depending on how the conditions break.
It’s a magical time of year yes, but also one where turf management teams need to be on high alert for changing agronomic conditions and the start of disease outbreaks.
As heavy dews will be standard for many now, the usual cultural practices for dew management need to become more of priority to reduce disease risk.
My prediction for the summer was that after such a warm dry spring we’d see strong anthracnose pressure at some point, It hadn’t really materialised until recently and if the moisture a temperatures hold it could get worst from here.
I’ve talked to a lot of people this year about the AIM pack, Ascernity is the first choice fungicide for this part of the season as we still have good growing conditions, and with two systemic fungicide actives in the one bottle it’s offering that broad spectrum control that’s needed with multiple threats present to the turf.
As with every autumn the challenge is making sure we go into to colder parts of winter with disease pressure under control as turf loss received now can stick with you until growth returns.
