Monday, July 22, 2013

HUMBLE PIE

 
Superintendents across the land have all eaten their fair share of humble pie.  Sometimes it's force fed to us by mother nature and sometimes we eat it on our own.  Following our preventative chemical application to greens and tees on Friday we experienced some phytotoxicity.  What is Phytotoxicity?
It's the burning or toxic response from a chemical application.  Last Friday we applied our standard preventative disease control heading into the weekend. As always, we applied these products in the morning to avoid the heat of the day.  Doing so reduces the chance of a phytotoxic response.  Later in the day the temps reached 97 degrees.  This was not a surprise as these temps were anticipated.  What was a surprise was the plant response and subsequent burning.  The affected areas were already weak and the phytotoxic response caused further set back.  The good news is disease is in check, the bad news is we suffered some collateral damage in the process. Most areas will grow out of this effect in a few weeks.  Some will require additional inputs.  Today we dimple tined and seeded these areas to promote and speed recovery.  I apologize for the aesthetics while we recover.