I was out at Rocky Ford this morning planning some projects with my colleague Dr. Jack Fry and our student Mingying Zhang. I was enjoying the clouds and thinking how lucky I am to be able to work outside at least part of the time… what a lovely morning…
When, suddenly, Jack said, “I think there’s some brown patch over here.”
Sure enough – there it was!
A closer inspection revealed the lesions:
Brown patch likes moisture, and we’ve had no shortage of that. Brown patch also likes warm nights (temps about 68 or higher), and we have had a few of those in the past few days. So, there you go. I was not quite ready to be thinking about brown patch, but brown patch does not care what I think! Also, this was a newly-seeded stand (last fall) and it did just get a boost of quick-release N (for a study), so it was juiced up and susceptible. We didn’t see it elsewhere, in less-juicy turf.
Brown patch conditions will be fading, so symptoms in our plot will probably fade too. The nighttime lows will be cooling off in the next days. For example, those lows will be in the low-mid 60’s (Kansas City area), upper 50s to low 60’s (Manhattan), and upper 50’s-low 60’s (Goodland), depending on which forecasting service you look at. With cooler temps, any brown patch activity should cease, but it may be back again when summer conditions kick in for good.
For more information on brown patch you can check out some information HERE.
