North Oaks Golf Club

Breaking Fairy Ring’s Flight: Insignia® Fungicide Steers Course Closer to Perfection

Never judge a superintendent by his office. North Oaks Golf Club superintendent Jack MacKenzie is serious about his craft, even though his dogs Nugget and Tyson roam freely throughout his office, his desk is covered with papers and odd memorabilia and fishing tackle clutter the walls. His course is much different; it’s pretty close to immaculate.

It’s the course that matters. Growing up on a golf course, MacKenzie joined a grounds crew at age 16. Employed as a superintendent for the last 23 years, he starts each day at 5:30 a.m. to cut cups, drive and scout the 55-year-old, par-71 Minnesota course, checking meticulously for any turf inconsistencies. He appears to be in sync with every move that his 22-member, summertime crew makes and isn’t shy about calling his green staff the best in the upper Midwest. He has maintained golf course superintendent certification requirements for the last 15 years, serves as editor for the Minnesota Golf Course Superintendent Association publication Hole Notes, and frequently contributes turf knowledge on superintendent resource Web sites. With characteristic insight and initiative, he created and marketed his own golf course marker product. For MacKenzie, the agronomics of golf is life.

Like most superintendents, he is presented with many challenges, including handling membership demands and the pressure to keep his turf disease-free.

“I try to keep the bulk of my members happy,” said MacKenzie. “They are looking for perfection. But this job is full of interruptions. If players weren’t interrupting us by playing golf, we’d have amazing courses. But it doesn’t work that way.”

MacKenzie’s most significant disease challenge on his annual bluegrass is anthracnose, which attacks the turf in high stress areas in the summer months. To combat anthracnose and any other apparent diseases, the fairways and tees are treated every 14 days and the greens are treated every 7 to 10 days. MacKenzie rotates a handful of products and focuses on a preventive approach in his fungicide program. The North Oaks Golf Club plant protection program includes treating the greens with fungicide applications the third week of April and following up to treat the fairways and tees three to four weeks later. The pattern continues through the first week of September and a final fungicide application is made the first week of November to protect against winter pathogens such as pink snow mold.

“If you’re going to maintain annual bluegrass under cultural conditions that create optimum conditions for the membership, you’ve got to treat for anthracnose,” said MacKenzie. “Twenty years ago, when we were mowing the fairways between 3/4 of an inch and an inch, it wasn’t a big deal. Today, we’re mowing at 1/2 inch on the fairways and the greens are 0.125. Today’s demands require a preventive approach.”

During the 2004 season, MacKenzie was fortunate enough to steer clear of the anthracnose that had infected the turf in previous seasons. In fact, he was clean all season except for what he calls “nasty yellow rings” that appeared on his greens the third week of May. Though the greens had been on a solid early-season fungicide program, wet and cool weather brought on disease pressure and the rings flourished. The sporadic ring appearance created a handful of rings on each green - some four feet across and some four inches across - with a well defined perimeter ring. The ring color morphed from a shade of yellow in the spring to a greenish color in the summer.

North Oaks Golf Club had been prone to the rings for the past seven years or more and MacKenzie theorized that they were an expression of cool-season brown patch and would disappear with warm weather. However, the fungicides in his rotation labeled for the disease were not providing control and every other alternative he experimented with was unsuccessful. After reading comments on a turf Web site describing similar rings as fairy ring, he decided to alter his program.

“We have had the rings for many years and I’ve always taken the ‘take a step back and let it run its course’ approach,” said MacKenzie. “Eventually I became so frustrated that they weren’t going away and it really bothered me. So I decided to take care of them.”

MacKenzie used Insignia® fungicide at the suggestion of his BASF sales specialist, who visited the course and flagged Insignia as a new product labeled for fairy ring. The active ingredient in Insignia is pyraclostrobin, a member of the strobilurin chemistry class, which inhibits mitochondrial respiration. On May 25, MacKenzie applied the fungicide at a rate of 0.9 ounces per 1,000 square feet on his three acres of greens. Insignia was applied as a go-alone product with a growth regulator. In less than 48 hours, the rings were in dramatic decline.

“The Insignia cleaned up the rings in absolutely no time,” said MacKenzie. “A week later they were nonexistent. I had no preconceived notion of what to expect with Insignia but I was very, very impressed with the results I obtained. It controlled my pathogen and gave me some great color to boot.”

The May 25 application provided control until MacKenzie noticed the yellow rings resurfacing in early September. At that time, he made a second application that yielded identical results to the spring treatment—immediate fairy ring knockdown. Labeled for 28 days of control, Insignia demonstrated extraordinary performance and longevity at the Minnesota course. MacKenzie also found Insignia to be effective against anthracnose, which was not a factor all season.

While BASF recommends preventive Insignia applications, MacKenzie plans on using Insignia to combat the fairy ring if it re-emerges on his greens during future seasons – a curative strategy based on the quick knockdown the product provided. He no longer worries about the fairy ring getting out of line.

“I like to have correctional options available if I’m backed into a corner by a pathogen or environmental factor,” said MacKenzie. “Is there peace of mind not having to worry about the rings? Absolutely. The product is helping to steer our course closer to perfection.”

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