Turfgrass experts say most winter turfgrass diseases won’t be catastrophic this year – particularly the various type of snow mold that spring up when 2021 rolls around.

And while proper prevention methods are the best ways to tackle turfgrass diseases, there are some ways to keep lawns healthy even after temperatures rise again.

“By the time we get to January, there’s not a lot we’re doing to prevent those diseases, so now we’re at the point where we’re trying to recover as quickly as we can,” says Paul Koch, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Koch says the winter diseases can really be defined by whether or not there’s snow cover in that particular region of the country. Where there is snow, the snow molds – speckled, gray and pink – are all more likely to pop up. In areas of the country where there isn’t much snow, contractors could deal with more leafspot or large patch diseases.

“If we get snow down here, it’s generally here today and gone tomorrow,” says Clint Waltz, an extension specialist at University of Georgia Extension. “It’s more wet conditions than anything else, and then compound that with possible drying conditions, that generally doesn’t facilitate disease when it gets dry.”

“It always helps to know what you’re dealing with...You want to make sure that you have an accurate diagnosis.” Paul Koch, associate professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Identifying the diseases.

By the time landscapers start encouraging turf growth in the spring, Koch says plants usually are recovering from their dormant periods.

The issue with finding the right treatment is that many of the diseases look similar at first glance, particularly snow molds. They all produce circular patches about one to three feet in diameter, though pink snow mold contains a reddish ring around the outside while gray snow mold produces structures called sclerotia, which survive in dead leaf tissue. These look like red pebbles or sand granules. Meanwhile, speckled snow mold simply looks like somebody sprinkled pepper on the turf.

Other cool-season turf diseases found up north or in colder parts of the western United States are Pythium blight, which produces slick, brownish blotches in the turf, and powdery mildew, a more serious issue that leaves the turf looking like it’s been sprayed with white dust.

Koch says leaf spot can affect both cool- and warm-season turf, though it seems to be a little more common in areas that don’t experience much snowfall. These can be identified by finding spots on leaves as the name implies.

Diseases like large patch, meanwhile, are also a little easier to decide because the issue is obviously spread right across the turf. These are often found on St. Augustine, zoysiagrass, centipede and Bermudagrass turfs. Dollar spot and brown patch are also issues for these types of turf.

But Koch also says talking with an extension specialist, particularly locally, can help contractors best navigate these winter diseases. It’s easy to get one disease confused for another, and treatments can vary. He recommends treating and monitoring the infected areas for about a month before then reaching out for help to see if someone knows what to do.

“It always helps to know what you’re dealing with,” Koch says. “You may think the issue that you had was snow mold, but it may be something else. You want to make sure that you have an accurate diagnosis.”

A year-round affair.

In areas with warmer climates, turf disease is an ongoing fight, though wintertime actually provides some much-needed reprieve.

Waltz says most warm-season grasses are more susceptible to diseases during transition seasons like fall and winter. There are some exceptions, he notes, but generally, this time of year actually slows down diseases for folks down south. In fact, if contractors are just noticing winter turfgrass diseases during the winter months, chances are strong that they’re seeing the remnants of a fall disease, Waltz says.

“It’s not going to get better over the wintertime,” Waltz says. “If you had patch over October, that spot didn’t disappear in December or January. Because it was there in the fall, it still will be there in the spring.

The issue is knowing when to apply product – it’s easier to go too early in places where it’s relatively warm all the time. Waltz recommends waiting until temperatures are a little more consistent. To be specific, he says soil temperatures four inches deep in the ground should be about 65 degrees or higher.

Fertilizing too soon will only invite turfgrass diseases to come in during the spring, Waltz says.

“Disease doesn’t go to zero, but it certainly slows down this time of year for us,” he says.

Ways to constantly combat turfgrass diseases include raking off leaves and debris from the turf constantly. Allowing the turf to retain all the moisture from beneath the leaves over an extended period of time is often what causes the diseases in the first place.

“I think getting that off can help mitigate disease as much as anything,” Waltz says. Regarding raking, Koch adds that it increases the temperature of the grass, fending off any further damage from the disease.

“It’s going to have sunlight penetrate deeper into the canopy and increase oxygen flow in the area,” Koch says.

There's always next year.

As far as turfgrass diseases go, Koch says the best way to avoid them is simply taking preventative measures. Applying nitrogen products, for instance, should stop by the end of September or end of October.

“When we get later in the fall, you’re stimulating growth when it really should be slowing down,” Koch says, adding that the plants are trying to shut themselves down to protect themselves during the winter.

Improving drainage around the turf also helps prevent diseases, as water or other moisture that pools up together in one spot is often a culprit for turf issues. Plus, Koch says once a diseased spot is found, landscapers should avoid walking through it, spreading the disease from one spot to another.

And, of course, mowing at an appropriate height during the season also helps keep the turf healthy. This helps keep conditions bad for fungal growths and good for proper turf growth at the same time. For most types of grasses, keeping lawns at a three-inch height is about right, though this is just the recommended mowing height. It could vary based on the situation or even the type of turf.

“(Treatment is) a matter of changing the environment again to make it less suitable for disease to grow,” Koch says. “If things aren’t healing, you need to reach out to an expert. It’s a case-by-case basis with an extension specialist.”

Since March, because of COVID-19, many people in the U.S. are spending more time at home, leading to a larger focus on the back patio, outdoor kitchen and fire pit areas. Homeowners want this area lit up, says Rick Baird, national sales manager at Vista Professional Outdoor Lighting.

“You put light out there, it just kind of pulls you outside. It's kind of an extension of the indoor family room or kitchen outside now with lighting,” he says.

When lighting this space, Baird says a professional contractor will strategically place lights to create an environment that’s inviting, safe and comfortable: lighting on the grill, lighting over where the cutting board will go and soft lighting around areas of conversation. It’s about using fewer fixtures to create more effective lighting with a larger output. When done properly, the difference is “night and day,” he says.

“This expands the living space and possibilities during social distancing,” says Scott Pesta, senior product manager of landscape lighting at Kichler Lighting.

In designing outdoor spaces, creativity is often needed to solve niche lighting issues, says Sarah Auyeung, associate product manager for Hunter Industries’ lighting brand, FX luminaire. For example, instead of a pathway being lit by path lights, perhaps a homeowner would want something that isn't a potential tripping hazard. There could be a wall nearby where a light could be positioned, put a shroud over it to control the glare and throw the light across the path.

This can change how the fixtures are designed in the future. Auyeung sometimes sees what homeowners and contractors do with the fixtures and will change them accordingly to be more versatile. Also, there are more products that are multipurpose.

“There is much greater diversity in landscape lighting products, especially individual fixtures that can complete a broad range of tasks formerly accomplished by less efficient models,” says Todd Goers, national sales manager for landscape lighting at WAC Landscape Lighting.

“You put light out there, it just kind of pulls you outside.” Rick Baird, national sales manager, Vista Professional Outdoor Lighting

Contemporary style.

Recently, the look of the landscape lighting fixtures have trended differently. Now, many take on a contemporary look, often to match contemporary architecture. They don't distract from the house, having thin, clean lines and clear colors, like brushed nickel, aluminum, black and sometimes white, says Jon Bowman, national sales director at Coastal Source. Instead of a standard path light with a rounded top, a contractor might purchase an L-shaped one to match the clean lines of the house. Another type is a bollard-style fixture. It is a square, simple and clean design that comes up from the ground.

Homeowners are looking for a “New, fresh look,” Bowman says.

Homeowners also want small fixtures because they don't want to see them, he says. They have a “small footprint, but fairly significant output.” This is possible because of light emitting diode (LED) technology, as opposed to the old incandescent light bulbs, Baird says.

Baird says today, almost all sales of lights are LED. They have come a long way in the past decade. When LED first came out, there was hesitation to buy it based on ignorance and skepticism. Many people were first introduced to LED as a bright, stark bluish light. It didn’t fit in most lighting situations, especially indoors. Now, it can produce light that’s softer, warmer and can match any color temperature.

LED brings efficiency with it. A product that uses one and a half watts of electricity to give the same amount of light that a 20-watt light bulb did eight years ago, Baird says. A good quality LED can get 50,000 hours in the landscape, Bowman says.

“There's probably not a citizen, homeowner, consumer ... that doesn't know about LED today,” Baird says.

Custom benefits.

As LED technology advances, automation and control also continue to advance. This automation allows light to be controlled through schedules and systems or manually through an app or desktop. It also allows the lighting to be connected to other systems, like home, voice-command and audio systems, so it all can all be controlled at the “touch of their finger,” Baird says.

“(Connected products have) really taken off,” Baird says. “Now… we can tell each individual light bulb what to do, to come on, to shut off and to dim, or to be green or red or blue.”

On some systems, homeowners can have lighting scheduled, so the lighting will automatically turn on when it gets dark outside, then turn off at dawn. They can choose their own schedule, too, says Eden Allen, product manager, Lighting for Unique Lighting Systems. This can be set differently for separate areas of the yard.

“So, if you want to, for instance, always have your front yard turned on from that time period, you can set it so that it turns on and off at ‘dusk till dawn’ in your front yard, but you only want to have your backyard turned on when you have people over,” Allen says. “So, just having that control is something that is a really big demand from the market.”

These integrations give more value to these products, which help customers.

“Customers are requesting that contractors focus on the budget and getting the most value for their project dollars,” Pesta says. “This may be drop-in fixtures with LED lamps for some, while other customers want the advantages of an integrated LED product.”

Color-changing capabilities.

Another capability of this new technology is the ability to control the color of the light. The range is wide: it can produce millions of colors, Baird says. It can be changed to be season specific: red, white and blue for the Fourth of July and red and green for Christmas. These can also be changed in temperature and brightness to illuminate and highlight certain aspects of properties.

“You can change the color on those also to enhance your outdoor space. And that's really meant for enhancing like a green in a tree that will look better with a cooler white temperature versus if you have like a stucco finish on a house that looks better with a warmer white, so you can play around with that as well,” Allen says.

Landscape lights can be set to a soft pastel pink to highlight pink flowers when they bloom. Once they’re gone, that can be changed to a soft blue or green to highlight a palm tree in the yard, Auyeung says.

“It's accentuating and bringing out those colors. It's not masking the colors,” she says.

Allen says people also like to be able to play around with the color changing options. However, the trend is regional. It is mainly in southern coastal markets, where the landscape can be enjoyed year-round.

“That's something that's bigger than I ever imagined It would be. I knew that it was something that was kind of coming up in the industry, but the response to it has been really overwhelming,” she says.

While Allen has continued to see this trend grow, Bowman says he’s seen it decline a bit.

“The rage a couple of years ago was color,” he says. “It's still a need out there, but I don't know if it's necessarily what it was two or three years ago.”

Employees know what they want out of a company, and if yours doesn’t check all the boxes, they’ll find it somewhere else.

That’s the perspective of John Munie, and perhaps that’s why his team at Focal Pointe Outdoor Solutions headquartered in Missouri is so hellbent on constant improvement. Munie, the company’s president, says employees need a fair wage – that’s a given. But then, Munie says the best company owners are the ones who start thinking beyond the paycheck.

“If you really think about it, what matters more? At the end of the day, you’re going to make a nickel if you run a decent-sized company,” Munie says. “When I take our people out to dinner for their (work) anniversary, I ask them: What are your dreams for the company and what are your dreams for yourself?”

It’s these types of conversations that helped Munie conclude his company needed to do more. He says the culture at Focal Pointe was always strong, but with the recommendation of a consulting group, the company still set up five committees dedicated to improving all facets of the business. In particular, Munie wanted to examine marketing, innovation, safety, team education and charity work.

The company had a strategic meeting in November where they established the committees, and leadership collaboratively helped place employees in each committee where they felt the employees’ strengths fit best.

And whether it’s the newly launched Focal Pointe University – a program that will teach employees valuable life skills like English as a second language, financial literacy and more – or it’s workplace safety, Munie says his company is always looking to improve. And, despite the pandemic, Munie’s goals have not changed. He hopes his company is better in 2020 than it was in 2019.

“Are some of the initiatives we wanted to do going to get done? No,” Munie says. “But are we going to get the emotional benefit of overcoming something and adversity? Absolutely. We just shift that focus a little bit.”

Munie says the company is currently hovering around 185 employees and earned $17.8 million in revenue last season. They handle largely commercial accounts like the Enterprise Rent-a-Car headquarters and nearby Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals, plus some larger residential clients.

Though maintenance makes up about 50% of what the company does, Munie expects some drop in revenue this year because less people are doing enhancements and construction projects.

Even still, Munie says he’s optimistic. The committees meet with Munie at least once a month and then weekly or bi-weekly on their own volition.

“Our goals are not changing,” he says. “Our bar is not lowered for the year. Even if we’re dealing with adversity, that doesn’t mean our customer should notice. We still expect to perform very well on our customer satisfaction.”

After a strategic planning meeting in November, Munie helped the team devise five committees that would help Focal Pointe improve in areas that aligned with the team's mission statement.

Lessons learned.

Focal Pointe spent the winter constructing a 30x30-foot expansion to their main office, complete with a projector, whiteboard, two large flatscreen televisions, a sink and a fridge. But by the time it was actually finished in early February, the pandemic started to ravage the nation and the company needed to postpone its new Focal Pointe University.

Even though the University was paused, the space did come in handy, creating a spot for small company meetings during COVID-19. Munie says they were able to keep employees socially distant because of the extra room in the office; however, they weren’t able to use the new add-on until August for the education component.

That’s where Sandra Gonzalez comes in. The director of talent and development helps find educators for Focal Pointe University. She says as of now, the company brings in an English teacher twice a week to educate the employees who largely speak Spanish fluently.

She adds that Focal Pointe has always hired outsiders to help teach lessons, but they’re trying to create concrete curriculums and plans so education is ongoing.

They’ll do classes on how to become an account manager next and will eventually move into more life skills lectures, such as long-term planning for a child’s cost of college.

“If we don’t have the right skills in house, we look for somebody to come in and teach those classes,” Gonzalez says. “We’re not going to try and teach something we’re not familiar with.”

Once the pandemic settles and groups can crowd together again, Gonzalez says they’ll be able to hold up to 50 people in the office extension. This means they’ll save the future costs of renting out a hotel conference center or other space for their larger group outings.

In the meantime, the committee that gets together to discuss Focal Pointe University will continue structuring its education paths for the employees.

“As time goes on, it will only get better because we will get feedback,” Gonzalez says. “That’s our goal is to get better every year and streamline it so that it is seamless a few years from now.”

The next big thing.

When Elyse Harpstrite first joined Focal Pointe seven years ago, only five people in the whole company used their software program. It was clunky and outdated, she says, and it wasn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing, either.

That’s a stark contrast to today. The company had paperless time sheets within 18 months of implementing its newest software four years ago, and crews were clocking in on their mobile devices. Now they can even track materials used and leave notes for others in the company about a particular jobsite. The communication is largely digital, and that’s been huge in the COVID-19 world.

Harpstrite admits that change didn’t come easily. As she was formerly the contracts manager (now an account manager), she paved the way in terms of implementation with the new software.

“I think with any kind of change, you have a sense of panic. That panic comes from different personalities. Some people love a challenge, love a change. Some people say, ‘I’m good here. This is working here. What are we doing?’” she says. “When we came out with it, we knew it’d be a process and that we couldn’t download everything on everyone at one time.”

Harpstrite says they gave crews three to five months to figure out mobile time sheets while also still documenting everything on paper. This way, management could turn around and educate employees on why they did or didn’t use the software properly. They also rolled it out in increments, starting first with the people they felt most apt to working with a new software.

“Instead of a manager encouraging others to use the technology, (you should) get their peers to encourage others,” she says.

Now, Harpstrite sits on the team’s innovations committee. They discuss a wide variety of technological advancements and are currently exploring ways to streamline their new jobs and finding new ways to track their equipment. She says another recent focus has been enhancing the customer experience, which Harpstrite says are all about the little touches. If, for instance, an employee at a client’s home notices carpenter bees, they’ll notify the customer and provide references for businesses they trust to take care of the issue. All of that information is backlogged in the team’s files and can be pulled whenever an issue arises.

“When our clients walk by, you’re just (someone) on a mower,” she says. “But once you wave, you’re more of a person. We’re not just a land care company; we’re their partners.”

Streamlining safety.

Weekly meetings have helped change the culture around safety, says Raymundo Ramos, the team’s safety director and foreman on one of the crews. Each team manager creates an annual schedule with their crews to discuss seasonal issues. For instance, they talk about how to stay safe while pruning when pruning season starts.

Ramos says proactivity is better than reactivity, but one thing that’s also helped is the technology. When there’s an incident out in the field, Ramos and management can send accident reports cautioning the remainder of the crews to avoid repeating that mistake. Then, the next morning, Ramos and the team will go over the safety infraction again in greater detail.

“We are very focused on identifying obstacles or hazards so we can remove them before it becomes an incident or accident,” Ramos says.

Ramos, a 16-year veteran of the car manufacturing industry, says Focal Pointe implemented LEAN, which is a common, systematic approach to proactively eliminating some items that might cause frequent accidents or injuries. He says the crews pushed back a little on that, but once they saw how much time they were saving – Ramos estimates roughly 15% – they embraced the program.

Of course, the pandemic has shifted a lot of this initiative digitally, and it’s added a new wrinkle that the team will wrestle with for at least the coming months. Focal Pointe has 27 mowing maintenance crews and 11 installation crews, and they had to facilitate all the proper PPE and keep crew sizes smaller to encourage social distancing. For the employees who are there on visa programs, Ramos says they’ve rearranged housing assignments so they can minimize potential outbreaks.

“In the event that somebody tests positive, we can contain that to that specific three- or four-people crew,” he says.

All things considered, Ramos says safety initiatives are still going well – even if they aren’t as seamless as he’d like due to COVID-19.

“Efficiency this year is going to be a challenge,” he says.

Looking ahead.

Munie says his committees are dedicated to answering critical questions that align with the company’s four pillars: great place to work, operational excellence, uniquely positive client experience and partner in the community. Using technology to drive these initiatives is key, he says.

“Everything we do is in that prism. If it doesn’t support that, then why are we doing it?” Munie says. “I believe technology is going to be a game-changer in our industry more than people realize.”

The COVID-19 pandemic actually epitomizes what Munie’s team is all about, he says. As they communicated their way through the early goings of the pandemic, emails were not directives – they were calls for feedback on what could be done better.

“Any time we have a problem, we make our team part of it,” he says. “This is not John Munie sitting on top of a throne dictating how we’re going to be navigating the virus. My life improved the second I improved the company, and I want to continue that.”

If there is one word to describe compact tractors, “versatile” would have to be the winner.

“They offer great flexibility in what you do and how you do it,” says Kelcey Cockrell, product manager for Kubota’s BX, B, L, & MX Series.

“Skid-steers do a good job, but they are not as versatile or as easy to use, especially for a new owner. Not to mention that both the skid-steer and the implements for the skid-steers tend to be more expensive when compared to a compact tractor.”

Along with a price advantage for implements, the amount that can be used with a compact tractor is attractive.

“The compatibility with a variety of implements creates a do-it-all machine that can cut, dig, haul, trench and more,” says Joel Hicks, senior product support manager at Kioti.

Compact tractors can be smaller and lighter than some of the alternative solutions, making more room on a trailer for other equipment, says Jon Friess, product specialist at Steiner.

“Trailer ratings and driver license requirements may also be lower, which can be advantageous,” he says. “Less weight and size can also help when a compact tractor is properly equipped to minimize ground disturbance, reduce risk of turf damage or function in soft conditions.”

Ray Gherardini, product marketing at John Deere, describes a compact tractor as a “true workhorse” with the use of implements.

The machines can help maintenance contractors when equipped with mowers and rotary cutters, and also come in handy when the snow starts to fall.

“In winter months, blades, blowers, snow pushers and brooms help keep grounds clear in the heaviest of snow,” Gherardini says. “The true benefit of a compact utility tractor is the ability to tackle a variety of jobs in any season.”

What’s trending.

Angie Ryan, who is the compact tractor marketing manager at Bobcat, says she has seen the development priority of these machines move slowly from function to comfort. Changes like automatically connecting front end loaders and mid-mowers, to the popularity increase of quick connection three-point hitches, prove that landscapers are willing to pay for convenience.

“The compact tractor market is a mature one but there are still signs of innovation to keep the competition fresh,” Ryan says.

Cockrell says a trend she’s seen developing is the tread type within tire offerings. “One of the newest tread types to the market is an agriculture/turf/industrial crossover (R14T) which provides both a smooth ride with less ground pressure than ag or industrial tires, as well as the traction needed in snow, ice or muddy applications,” she says.

Hicks says contractors want more power in smaller frames because it allows landscapers “a wider array of options to use larger attachments in smaller areas therefore allowing them to do more tasks across their properties.”

Ryan adds that one element that hasn’t changed that much is the powertrain. “There are a variety of options out there for transmission but ever since the introduction of the hydrostatic drive system it seems that things have slowed a bit likely due to the incredible cost of the Tier 4 engine transition,” she says.

Friess says demand for compact tractors has been on the rise, especially as the benefits become better understood.

He adds that when a company doesn’t have enough money in the budget for multiple pieces of equipment, it’s important to assess for need.

“For example, if a wheel loader with limited attachment options and limited slope capabilities is needed 20% of the time, and a compact tractor with a host of attachments and the ability to work on turf or steeper slopes can be utilized 70% of the time, it would make sense to buy or lease the compact tractor and rent the loader as needed,” he says.

Missed opportunities.

With the compact tractor’s variety of ways to be used, that increases the chances contractors aren’t getting the most out of the machine like maximizing the backhoe compatibility.

“A backhoe is worth the investment because it allows the crew to do so much – installing underground utilities and building ponds or water features to moving heavy materials like rocks, gravel and soil particularly in the tighter areas on a property where a larger backhoe may not be able to access,” Hicks says.

Friess adds: “Not everyone realizes how capable compact tractors are when equipped with a landscape rake, but they can grade different types of material such as dirt or stone, or to gather limbs when clearing debris.”

Ryan says she often hears buyers wish they would have bought the next size up because of the number of ways the compact tractor can be used. “We would recommend looking at where you want to be in a few years instead of where you are today when researching a new compact tractor,” she says.