BASF T&O sponsors TurfNet Superintendent’s Best Friends Calendar
Dogs and golf course superintendents, they go together like chocolate and peanut butter and jelly. Separate they are pretty good, together they are great and that’s just one reason BASF Turf & Ornamentals is once again proud to be the sponsor of the TurfNet Superintendent’s Best Friends Calendar.

The submission lines are open for all supers to submit their dogs for consideration in the calendar but you’ve got to get them into TurfNet before the end of July.

Tips for submitting your dog’s photo
Our own Dr. Toni Bucci, Business Manager of BASF Turf & Ornamentals, has provided some tips on how to submit your photos to Turfnet. To learn more visit this URL: http://www.turfnet.com/view_news.php?obj_id=361.

The TurfNet Superintendent’s Best Friends Calendar…it’s the original, don’t settle for imitations.

My Red Sox update
Greetings from Red Sox Nation. The flash in the pan that was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays has evaporated and the Red Sox and Evil Empire are tied for first in the American League. All is right with the universe as the Red Sox sweep the down on your luck Detroit Tigers. With the news from General Motors this week you would think that there would be a little more sympathy for the Tigers. It does appear that the Red Sox are perfectly poised to sweep their third World Championship this millennium!

Turfgrass diseases & conditions: Updates for New England golf courses and turf professionals
It has been very cool this spring so far. Last week’s temperatures in Cape Cod were low 40s with showers. We have had plenty of rain in the area, but golf courses’ turf is not saturated. There have been many days of light rain. The turf in my backyard looks awesome…which is a bio-indicator that it is a very easy grass growing year so far.

We have some reports that dollar spot is active in southern NY and Long Island. Reports of Waitea patch have diminished. Soil temps are in the high 50s to low 60s. Most golf course superintendents are on a 14-day preventative schedule right now.

On a side note, BASF Turf & Ornamentals is collaborating with Matrix on a U.S. Open sponsorship at Bethpage, NY.

Golf course superintendents experience positive trial results with Honor™ fungicide
Thavy Un, one of our Marketing Managers at BASF Turf & Ornamentals, visited New England this week to support our Honor™ fungicide demonstrations. Note to all—no matter when you visit New England…bring a jacket.

Initial observations from golf course superintendents who have demo’d Honor include…”quicker recovery from aeration when Honor was applied three days before,” and,” Very quick green-up response after the Honor response.”

Looks like we have another winner on our hands! I am excited to see our Honor fungicide product launch this fall.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I will be bringing three lucky superintendents to the Red Sox/Yankee game next Thursday. Look for me on TV; I will be the one wearing the Red Sox cap.

Hi, everyone—I want to share a great Web tool for researching and learning about turfgrass diseases.

North Carolina State University TurfFiles: http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/diseaseID

What’s nice about this site is you can select the type of turfgrass you have and the month, and it provides a list of diseases that affect the host turf during that time. Below is an example for anthracnose.