An unexpected but very welcome 28 mm of rain in the storm on Tuesday night that blew through.  There was a fair bit of wash so not all was of benefit as was the 13 mm the week before but still very handy at this time of year.  I am a big defender of the weather bureau, but it is pretty amazing that it wasn’t forecast in any way shape or form until it was literally on our doorstep. 

We will take it.

The fight against the Poa in the greens is continuing with the rain we have been receiving enough to keep it alive.  I have trialed a product on 10R green and the Tif PPG that I have not had good results with before, but it seems very promising thus far.  5W is still really badly infested and I am giving the product that we are trialing there one more application as it supposedly takes eight weeks and three applications for it to work which is where we are approaching. 

Two of the biggest problems in greens management in Australia over the past couple of years has been the Poa resistance and also a disease complex known as ERI, both of which we have experienced here at Cool Tweed. This years turf conference in Adelaide has dedicated workshops for both these problems and both are going to be interactive so should be great to get a lot of the successes and failures from clubs around Australia. ERI is a  particularly difficult disease to conquer and took us nearly 3 years  which included a change of fertiliser and other management practices but there are many clubs still fighting it. The Poa resistance doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon so this will be very interesting subject and it is a world wide problem.