Gray leaf spot and soil moisture
October 2, 2006
Can you control turf diseases by withholding water? It's theoretically possible, but it's a strategy that that usually backfires. Unfortunately, drought-stressing the turf usually hurts the turf more than it hurts the disease.
We saw a case in point this week on kikuyugrass fairways where irrigation distribution was not uniform. This is, sadly, a common problem, even on new irrigation systems.
When we measured soil moisture in the healthy and damaged areas of turf, there was a clear connection —…