Control the supply

On a typical morning during golf season, all 27 holes at Sand Barrens Golf Club will have golfers. As a premier course on the Jersey Shores, Sand Barrens has a problem that’s common to golf courses located in the Midwest and Mid Atlantic region: dollar spot fungus.

Golf superintendent Louis Pitcock, an Ohio native, was drawn to the New Jersey coast by the beauty of the area. After his migration, Pitcock learned quickly that managing dollar spot in a coastal area with sandy soil and less predictable weather than the Midwest is a different proposition.

“This is a vacation area with a lot of golf superintendents who’ve had experience with dollar spot,” Pitcock says. “It’s an environment where this comes up a lot and fortunately, we share information with each other about how to manage it.”

Pitcock says there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for dollar spot, but he values one technique over all others—and not just for his course. “Everyone can manage their water smarter by properly timing their watering and limiting frequency of moisture on the leaf blade,” he says. “Water management alone will do more to manage dollar spot than any other practice, in my opinion.”

At Sand Barrens, Pitcock says they wait until the turf is already wet or dewy to water. Saturating the ground at night or adding hand watering to normal irrigation helps Pitcock limit the need for frequent watering, which can encourage dollar spot. Without water, dollar spot can’t thrive.

Pitcock says many superintendents consider dollar spot a marker for all disease. If they don’t see it early in a season, they often assume their courses are somewhat safe from others, too.

While a little disease on the tees and in the fairways may be tolerable, dollar spot on greens is a different story on courses like Sand Barrens. Pitcock spends an estimated 25 to 30 percent more for chemicals on the greens than for tees and fairways, where smoothness, consistency and density aren’t important factors.

Because of the pressure to water daily, sandy courses are more vulnerable to dollar spot. That’s why Pitcock likes moisture meters that read content in the soil, which helps reduce the risk of overwatering.

Every course has unique conditions that influence response to disease. For courses with sandier soils that dry out quickly, the need for frequent watering sometimes pushes some superintendents to rely on cultural, chemical or mechanical practices to manage disease.

Pitcock says cultural practices like verticutting and topdressing often provide relief from dollar spot. “You can disrupt the soil surface to get water to penetrate and drain better, and you can thin the leaf canopy so dollar spot is less likely to attach to the leaf blade of the plant,” he says.

After water management, Pitcock’s preferred line of defense is a balanced nutrient program with adequate nitrogen. “The leaner and meaner I leave things, the more dollar spot problems I have had,” he says. “I used to be a fan of keeping things lean, but I gave that up a few years ago because I realized my dollar spot was a lot worse when I didn’t fertilize enough.”

Some superintendents are so confident of nitrogen’s protective qualities that they use it as their main weapon. “Dollar spot doesn’t like nitrogen growth,” he says. “I spray with a little bit of chemical, then lower my chemical rate and substitute a little fertilizer, and I feel like it’s just as effective as a lot of chemical.”