Fidanza: It’s #FriskyFairyRing time

Mike Fidanza, Ph.D., professor of plant and soil science, Penn State University, enjoys discussing fairy ring with turf professionals. So the 50 phone calls and emails he’s received in the last week aren’t a disruption, but a chance to discuss what he calls “a curious oddity of nature.”

He says fairy ring is exploding right now in the Mid-Atlantic region, because of the wet weather and high heat. He also knows it’s active in other parts of the world, as the disease was easily spotted all over St. Andrews during the recent Open Championship.

“You saw at The Open, Type 2 fairy ring symptoms all over the course. If it gets lush growth it could affect ball roll, and when it gets hot and dry it can begin wilting and dying,” Fidanza says. “At St. Andrews, they’ll probably get out there and hand-water those rings, then pitch fork them and try to get a wetting agent down, before they get cosmetically worse.”

Fidanza has discussed his thoughts on fairy ring with Golfdom before. His advice is always the same when superintendents or lawn care professionals call him on the topic.

“Basically, try to manage the moisture status in the soil root zone, you can do this with proper aerification, punching holes, solid tining, venting, (then) irrigating with a wetting agent, to try to minimize the extremes of the wet/dry cycles of the soil,” Fidanza says. “If golf courses have had severe fairy ring this summer, they should start thinking ahead for next spring and summer to have a soil surfactant program. There’s preventative fungicide applications and curative fungicide applications they can make and they work fine, but the best long term approach is to manage the soil moisture and also manage the organic matter in the root zone with reducing thatch, through topdressing programs.”

Of course, sometimes it just shows up no matter what you do, Fidanza says. In that case, just be sure to take a picture of it before you start treating it, and tweet the photo to him with the hashtag #FriskyFairyRingFriday.

“People post photos from all over the world. It gets a discussion going, where superintendents and academics share practices,” Fidanza says. “One thing about superintendents, those guys are willing to share ideas and help each other out.”