Towards Reducing Fungicide Use in the Control of Dollar Spot (Sclerotinia homoeocarpa F.T. Bennett) Disease On Creeping Bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.).

Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) is commonly used on golf course greens and fairways in cool-humid regions but is plagued by numerous fungal diseases, one of which is dollar spot disease (Sclerotinia homoeocarpa F. T. Bennett).  Dollar spot occurs frequently throughout the growing season requiring biweekly fungicide applications for complete control.  The objective of this study was to investigate reducing the number of fungicide applications needed to maintain dollar spot at acceptable levels through dew removal in creeping bentgrass.  For this study, a combination of mowing three times a week and dragging by hose the remaining four days to remove dew was used in an attempt to reduce disease severity.  The main effect of this combination treatment was not significant (p>0.05) and did not reduce the number of fungicide applications compared to normal mowing 3d wk^-1.  However, dollar spot was managed curatively with 20-80% fewer applications compared to a normal preventative fungicide program when a disease threshold was used.