By: Carl Schimenti, Urban Environmental Scientist
I suppose it’s that time of year to reflect…
Each week during the growing season, Frank Rossi hosts a Thursday morning conference call – known as the ShortCUTT call – featuring a smattering of regional turfgrass research and extension folks. Nearly every call is headlined by a weekly weather recap and prognostication from our favorite atmospheric scientist, Art DeGaetano. What follows is a free-flowing conversation about the various states of grass across the region (with an occasional derailment such as laurel wilt on Sassafras).
When I join the call, I try to take notes on each conversation topic. This helps me benchmark the relative states of the growing season across the entire region, so as not to overweight the specific trends I see in Ithaca. This year, I accumulated nearly 60 pages of hastily typed news, notes, and observations from the 2025 growing season from folks across the Northeast.
With some help from artificial intelligence, I reviewed my notes to produce a summary of the growing season. Here is the 2025 season-in-review, according to the ShortCUTT conference call:
Early Spring
Winter was slightly colder than normal, with lower-than-normal snow accumulation. Very dry to start the year after a drought beginning in Fall 2024. Repeated “stalls” of cold weather put the “hand break” on the start of the growing season
Late Spring
Excessive rainfall during warm-up in the second half of spring saw turf growth shoot up, but a chronic inability to mow.
Early Summer
Defined by persistent rain and high humidity, early summer was a “petri-dish” for disease, as first mentioned in early June. Foreboding…
Mid to Late-Summer
An abrupt shift to drought after a wet spring. Many regions fell into abnormally dry or drought conditions. “Dead grass everywhere”.
Fall
Soil temps remained high as summer transitioned to fall, delaying the fall season. It remained dry through October, which seemed to mute the typical fall colors, but made for relatively easy fall clean-up.
Pests:
Cool and wet spring conditions led to microdochium patch (pink snow mold) in many areas into June. Rich Buckley, Rutgers, was quoted in late July, saying “worst year for root pathogens in a decade”. No doubt a function of early spring wet conditions leading to shallow rootzones, that then became susceptible to root pathogens once summer drought stress hit.
Winter annuals were frequently mentioned by CCE staff getting calls from homeowners and pros about early season control. “People want to spray now”. A reminder to remember these weeds next Fall when weed control is most effective!
A quote from David Chinery, CCE Rensselaer, when he suggested overseeding to a homeowner with a variety of weed issues: “Hey, I tried that and it actually worked!”. Who knew!
An oddly quiet year for both ABW and grub damage. Occasional mention of chinch bugs, but insects in general seemed to take it easy.
Emerging trends:
Autonomous mowing was often discussed in the context of athletic field management at K-12 schools, where limited labor and equipment provides an opportunity for autonomous mowers to significantly improve field quality.
As growing seasons continue to expand, and summers get increasingly extreme, there has been increased mention of warm-season grasses. Under heat and drought of the summer. “zoysia lawns look so nice!”.
Herbicide alternatives have been a theme for many years. Weed zapping, fraize mowing, iron products, see-and-spray technology are all emerging tools that can reduce reliance on limited traditional herbicide chemistries. Randy Prostak, UMass, keeps us abrest of these technologies.
There you have it, the 2025 ShortCUTT call year-in-review.