Mark Hunt’s Weather Assessment
23rd - 31st August 2011

General Weather Situation
Currently we have a low pressure sitting out off the North-West Coast of the U.K and this is projected to move South-East bringing the low in to influence our weather for the rest of the week and the 1st part of the Bank Holiday weekend (U.K only). You may have heard all the weather warnings about thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, but luckily that weather system swung eastwards at the last moment and is now currently tracking over Holland towards Denmark, hopefully it won't give a repeat of the July flooding for Kobenhavn, where 5 inches of rain fell in an hour, blew manhole covers out of the street and left alot of roads under 4 ft of water !.

So that means a wet, showery outlook for the next 4 days or so, with tomorrow (Wednesday) being the driest day of the week for many, though rain will reach the west coast of Ireland, Wales and the South-West by late afternoon. Thursday starts off the same with heavy bands of rain affecting the west coast of Ireland and Wales and these push inland to bring rain to most areas through the day as the low pressure system moves closer to the U.K. The week ends with heavy rain showers over all areas, but I think the bulk of the rain will fall in the South of the U.K and Midlands (hopefully). Winds will be southerly through the week, but swing round to the north briefly as the low pressure system passes over the U.K.

By Saturday, the rain is confined to the South-West and South of England, slowly moving north and east to the Midlands, but Ireland should be relatively dry. By Sunday, the outlook is much better as rain clears the U.K and Ireland and leaves a bright and dry day as high pressure begins to build pushing temperatures up. So the 2nd half of the Bank Holiday looks good, bright, warm and dry......

Outlook
Next week looks to me to be dry and settled with high pressure in charge, albeit a weak one, so rain fronts may affect the South of the U.K later in the week. Temperatures will be around average in the high teens, cool at night, so expect some heavy dews and winds will be light.

Agronomic Situation
With the rainfall of last week, coupled with some warm nights and high humidity levels, conditions are proving ideal for disease development with Red Thread widespread, even on well fertilised areas (we've discussed this before) and plenty of Fusarium around. The good news is that conditions are also optimum for growth, so any nasty attacks of these diseases can be grown out and looking at next weeks forecast, the change to drier weather should lessen the activity of these diseases and make applications of either fungicides or fertiliser / plant hardeners combinations to counteract them, much easier than this week, where spray windows are limited.

If it's possible I'd suggest keeping your powder dry from a fungicide perspective, not in terms of non-application, more so in terms of which products you plan to use, because it makes sense to use your most effective treatments over October and November. This advice has to countered on my part with the realisation that many clubs have carried out August aeration and so topdressing is in full swing to bring back levels and here for sure, there are mitigating factors. The ideal scenario would be to achieve a quick knock-down of Fusarium and lower the population level enough to prevent a re-occurrence during the early part of September, particularly if the weather plays ball and doesn't favour further disease activity.

Mark Hunt
Technical Director
Headland Amenity Ltd

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