Turfgrass Mystery: what happened to this green?
08 July 2013
This is a MiniVerde ultradwarf bermudagrass green in the western part of Japan.
These photos were taken on 1 and 2 October. For a closer look at the grass, click on the image below:
At this location, the average air temperature for the previous three months had been 27.7°C in July, 30.3°C in August, and 26.3°C in September. Those are almost optimal temperatures for the growth of ultradwarf bermudagrass. It rained a lot in July, 454 mm, and then August and September saw 70 and 139 mm of rain, respectively.
In the worst area of the green, it looked like this:
However, it would seem that the weather in the preceding three months had been almost ideal for the growth of ultradwarf bermudagrass.
The mystery is, what happened to make the green look like this?
Here is one more photo. In the foreground is the mysterious MiniVerde green. In the background is a manilagrass (Zoysia matrella, called korai in Japan) green, that seems to be fine by comparison.
This was a tough mystery to solve, with many guesses, ranging from disease, to localized dry spot, to salt damage, to scald from hot topdressing sand, and many more. This damage was actually caused by application of the fungicide tebuconazole. I don't usually expect to see fungicides having this effect on grass, so I found this a difficult mystery to solve myself. Here is the correct answer.
@asianturfgrass @urbanturfmn How about DMI fungicides?
— Philip Harmon (@turfdrman) July 8, 2013
Thanks to everyone who helped to solve this. I have seen damage, sometimes severe, on ultradwarf bermudagrass greens in multiple countries in Asia after they have been sprayed with DMI fungicides (such as propiconazole or tebuconazole) at the label rate. Difenoconazole is supposed to be safer. For more information about DMI fungicides and bermudagrass greens, see this article by Dr. Monica Elliot: Bermudagrasses vulnerable to injury from some DMI fungicides.
In this situation, the tebuconazole damage was compounded by uneven application of the product. In the photos above, one can see various patterns of heavy or light application. The application method was similar to below, using a tanksha sprayer and applying the product with a hand wand.
I should give some partial credit to these responses also, for correctly identifying that the application method applied a product unevenly.
@asianturfgrass looks like whatever it caused the damage was applied by back pack sprayer. Not to familiar with warm season issues...
— J. Paul Robertson (@Vgclinks) July 8, 2013
@asianturfgrass applied PGR or herbicide by hand. @hkgolfermag
— H.Ikeda (@fc3s_13b) July 8, 2013
I'm a bit late catching up with this thread.... and not on twitter :) I have seen that sort of damage with Triazole fungicides before on Bermuda greens in Shenzhen, Southern China. The greens had been sprayed during the heat of the day in Summer and it had a huge PGR effect on the plants, turning the tifdwarf into a 'megadwarf' (oxymoron there!) with severely reduced inter-nodal spacing. I treated it with repeated light applications of gibberellic acid to reverse the gibberellin inhibiting effect of the Triazole.
Posted by: Blair Cornthwaite | 30 July 2013 at 11:24