Hi All,

At last a bit of warmth and dry weather and very welcome it is too. The next question will invariably be “How long is it going to last ? “…..well about a week I’d say looking at the outlook, as a low pressure front is projected to come down from the north in time for next weekend and return us to a trough pattern. So there’s never been a truer phrase than ‘Make hay while the sun shines’…For the lads and lasses in Ireland, I’m afraid the weather divide has aligned itself straight across Ireland so it won’t be the great forecast I predicted, my apologies..

General Weather Situation

map

Courtesy of Meteoblue

A pretty straight-forward forecast today as half of the U.K sits under the effects of a warm, high pressure system with the vast majority of the U.K  basking in warm sunshine. As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately Ireland is on the wrong side of diagonal north-south divide to our weather, so they’re currently picking up rain, as are areas in the U.K north of that. (see graphic right). For the south this week, we have hot, dry conditions and I expect temperatures to peak mid-week in the high twenties. For Ireland, the north of England and Scotland, it won’t be as great with rain pushing in today, but mainly affecting Connacht, Northern Ireland and north-west Scotland. This rain will push into Leinster overnight, but will lessen as it does so..North of this line will continue to be sunshine and showers through the week, with Thursday and Friday, the better days.

It’s not really till the end of the week that the high pressure system breaks down and rain pushes up into the south-east of England and down from the north intoThe Midlands late in the afternoon on Friday. Temperatures will begin to slide away slowly as it does so with high teens / low twenties the order of the day. Saturday should be a day of sunshine and showers and reasonable temperatures, with rain projected to affect the south-east, east coasts of England, Connacht and Leinster, though Munster may stay dry. Sunday looks cooler and with a high probability of rain I’m afraid.

Outlook

Tricky one this because I’m slightly uncertain how that low pressure will behave, but at this stage it looks like next week will be unsettled with sunshine and showers and temperatures in the high-teens.

Agronomics

I covered the agronomic side to this pattern of weather in last weeks mini-update, so there’s not much more to add other than we have a week of this weather and it’s effects in the south of the U.K and less so in Ireland, the north and Scotland. I’m pretty sure we’ll have some weird and wonderful diseases coming out of the woodwork with the combination of heat and moisture.

Waitea Patch is likely to be one of these, especially as it likes high moisture and is very often confused with Superficial Fairy Ring. It’s very linked to soil moisture, so you often find it on your wettest greens, though after the last 3-4 months that may not be the case this year. As you can see from the picture, the rings of this disease are often very yellow in colour. Cutting a section out of the affected area normally shows no localised hydrophobicity (water-repellence) and a lack of mushroom odour. I know Kate Entwistle is very keen to obtain samples of this disease, so if you think you’re looking at something similar, take some core profiles from the affected area and get them off to Kate at the address below ; She’ll be delighted I know 🙂

The Turf Disease Centre

Dr Kate Entwistle CBiol, MIBiol, MBPR

Waverley Cottage, Sherfield Road, Bramley, Hampshire RG26 5AG.  UK

 Telephone: +44 (0)1256 880246  Fax: +44 (0)1256 880178 Mobile: 07879 468641

By the way, I did some field trials on this disease last year, so if you want to have a chat about my results, drop me an email on mark.hunt@headlandamenity.com

regards

Mark Hunt