What practices do you employ to prevent or treat dollar spot?
Jim Nietubicz
Co-Owner at Paramount Turf Co.
Middleton, Del.
Dollar spot is common in nitrogen-deficient soils. Although you can’t collect data on nitrogen through a standard soil test, samples should be done every year to determine what is truly going on underneath. A balanced nutrient plan through soil testing coupled with key cultural practices and soil amendments will yield better turf.
Tom Kelly
Owner at Lawnmark Plus
Amherst, N.H.
When you run a program that includes biological inputs, you are able to naturally minimize dollar spot activity. In the Northeast, we deal with nuisance diseases almost all year long. Adding biological inputs … has reduced the incidents of breakouts significantly. When good bacteria and fungi appear in larger numbers than the pathogens that cause the disease, the appearance of the disease is naturally minimized. We have a fully organic program that consists of biologicals being applied with every treatment, and we hardly ever see any disease activity.
Grant Rardon
Owner at McPherson Turf Care
McPherson, Kan.
We try to use proper cultural practices: keeping thatch to a minimum, dethatching if needed, managing the irrigation, mowing
correctly and using a fungicide if needed. If it comes to it, we would apply a product with propiconazole, azoxystrobin with propiconazole, or triadimefon. Typically, we would use Eagle 20 EW (fungicide), but we rarely use a fungicide.
