I’m not saying anything new to mention that it’s currently dry.
A dry May isn’t that odd, the issue we have is the compounding effects of the months before being so dry also.
Widely reported that March 2025 was dry as a bone. See this BBC article.
April wasn’t much better for most, with lucky winners for rain in Ireland and Cornwall.
And so far May has been more of the same!
It looks like most have some rain on the horizon (hopefully more that the 4mm predicted below for Cambridge).
So make sure you are tracking it in the forecasts, so you can get a quality wetting agent out to make the most of it.
Turf advisor is a great tool for this, but use a forecast you trust for rainfall timing, It’s a hard one to predict.
Rain that falls on dry ground unfortunately doesn’t do what we want it to, and evenly rewet the surface.
If the soil surface becomes a dry crust it will lead to much of the falling water running away and pooling at the lowest point, to fly through the cracks in the surface there.
This will be more pronounced for areas of ‘interesting’ topography (architectural lumps & bumps).
The end result, much of the rain is lost and leaves you with a parched surface with uneven dry patch.
Track that forecasted rain and make sure you have a quality wetting agent in place to make the most of every drop, be that for irrigated greens or parched fairways.
Two things to watch out for down the line:
Because of the dry period we are more likely to see issues with the following:
- Anthracnose outbreaks later in the season. The stress felt now, and any loss in rooting the plant has had to sacrifice to get through this period can come back around later in the season so be mindful to minimise other stress factors where possible moving forward.
- Fairy ring detail – It’s already been a bad year for fairy ring, but wet dry cycles can be conducive so showing them off most vividly.
Fingers crossed we get some meaningful rain in the coming weeks and can build some turf health and resilience for the rest of the season!
