Knowing about Nostoc

We don't run into this problem every day, but every once in a while we receive a greens sample that is suffering from the cyanobacterium (blue-green algae), Nostoc.

Usually, when we talk about cyanobacteria, we are warning you about Oscillatoria, which is much more common on bentgrass, poa and bermudagrass greens. But occasionally, the closely related Nostoc pops up.

Nostoc has the unusual —and for turf managers troubling— habit of forming large, slimy colonies that look like gelatinous bubbles, something…