January 15th, 2026

Hi All,

A late and short (ish) blog this week because I have been up to my nadds in it prepping my talks for January and beyond.

I am doing one at the Continue to Learn Conference next Monday, a great test for me and my perpetual demon of relevance to this industry. I think it's a split system this year so attendees have a choice whose talk they attend. So, if I am sitting there chatting to the wall then I'll know eh ? 😮

A week later I am talking to the Racecourse Association down at Lingfield Park and in-between hopefully installing some weather stations and the like 😀. I like to be busy at this time of year before we get to spring and I dust down my saltwater fly fishing gear and sally forth into the waves !

Speaking of the spring, I took this picture on the fantastically useful, Sun Seeker app whilst out for a walk in Rutland. It shows the arc of the sun today, in yellow, at the Winter Solstice, in blue (Dec 21st, 2025) and at the Spring Solstice, in green. (March 20th, 2026)

So you can see that we are making progress towards longer days and better temperatures. We have had a stack of rain since the drought of 2025 and earlier this week I was looking at its effect on our Midland Reservoirs. Rutland Water, my 2nd home, is one of the main water storage reservoirs. At the end of November it was only 67.8% full, but as of Tuesday, it is now 84.9% full according to my contact at Anglian Water, with a weekly fill rate of 4%. That's good news because it means we have managed to re-balance some of our water reserves. It isn't the whole picture of course, but I'll take encouragement from it nonetheless.

ECMWF 10-day projection courtesy of tropicaltidbits.com

General Weather Situation

So, currently there is a lot of meteorological discussion about the potential for a return of those easterly winds we endured recently and of course colder temperatures with maybe more snow. Both the ECMWF and GFS projections do suggest the potential of this occurring towards the end of the month, so that's one to watch.

Currently, we are on the receiving end of more rain and wet weather as a low pressure system crosses the U.K today and another sits off the west coast of Ireland. As we progress towards the weekend, high pressure begins to build east of the U.K on the continent and this will serve to halt the ingression of Atlantic low pressure systems.

That Irish low pressure system though will continue to bring rain to the west of Ireland through to and including the weekend as it fails to move eastwards. So a wet end to the week, but thereafter I think a more sunshine and showers feel to everything as that high pressure brings more settled conditions.

When high pressure and low pressure systems butt up against each other, the wind gets funneled between them, either in a northerly or southerly direction. This time it looks like it will be southerly so that means we will hang on to milder air over the week ahead I think, though it'll gradually turn more south easterly for the U.K and Ireland (southerly I think for Denmark). So I think eastern areas like Denmark will have a dry and relatively mild (for January in Scandinavia) interlude this weekend and early next week before it turns increasingly colder. Over here we will see another low pressure try to push in from The Atlantic on Tuesday next week and that'll bring rain into the west. That rain will move easterly across The Irish Sea into the west of the U.K and then later, more central areas on Wednesday and Thursday, before things dry up again as that low fizzles away.

Now things start to get interesting at the end of next week as low pressure begins to build east of us and to the west. So the high pressure gets squeezed between the two, forcing it to pivot on its side and potentially (I say potentially) push in easterly winds and much colder air for the start of w/c 26-01-26. That is the weather feature to keep an eye on because if it happens, it'll bring more cold and snow to Denmark initially and then maybe across the U.K & Ireland.

Now it is worth pointing out that a lot can change between now and then, so it might not happen at all, but by the next time I sit down to write this blog, we will know one way or another.

Agronomic Notes

Microdochium disease model

Very happy (and a little proud) to get this project over the line into a beta version 😙

For a long (long) time, I have been looking at the relationship between climate and disease and the emergence of disease modelling as a science in its own right.

Our Prodata Reports software already features the current Smith Kerns Dollar Spot Probability model and an Anthracnose trigger prediction model.

Now, it also features a Microdochium model that I created and have fine-tuned over recent years using data from the myriad of Davis weather stations and sensors out there in the field.

This model directly utilises data from the Davis Leaf Wetness sensor in combination with a number of other deterministic and regression equations to calculate the probability of Microdochium disease pressure, based solely on data from an on-site weather station.

I have attached an example above for a golf club in Hertsfordshire, highlighting that period from 11-10-25 to 16-10-25 which caused so many problems early on in the autumn for so many golf clubs. Once that disease got established, it then went through a number of re-activity periods identified by my model and that meant frequent flare ups, despite appropriate control products being applied.

What is clear is that it isn't one isolated day of high disease pressure that does the damage. It is successive days of pressure. As we can see from the October activity in autumn 2025, we had 6 days on the bounce and that's what allows the fungal mycelium to develop to a point of pathogenicity.

Now, of course some people might say what is the use of an actual disease pressure model vs. a predictive model and of course it is based on data from only one location (the weather station) ?

Well I think I'd counter that by saying the predictive models are only as good as the probability that a forecast is correct and let's face it, with the way our weather is going, that probability isn't always very good. I also know some of the science behind leaf wetness (I should do, I have been looking at it long enough) and predicting this in advance is, well let's say, it's tricky.

Being a balanced individual, I definitely see a place for both types of systems, at least with an on-site, data-based system, you can validate the accuracy of a predictive one.

A predictive model is after all the most use to an end-user because it gives him / her time to do something about an upcoming disease peak. With the advent of AI, I think predictive models can be continuously improved by the machine-learning aspect of comparing predictions vs. actual on-site data. Without that validation, who is to know how accurate a predictive model is ?

With an on-site disease model, you can go back and check through applications you have made and compare them with the disease pressure at the time to ascertain the efficacy of those applications.

That in essence is what got me into working with Davis weather stations and Prodata indirectly, the need to validate the different aspects of a weather forecast / disease model. I am delighted that my search for knowledge took me down that particular avenue and I'd like to thank Peter Palmer, my colleague, for investing in some pretty vital, in-vitro research along the way. Not bad for a company of 3 people up against the corporate oil tankers, happy with that.

Next up will be my own Dollar Spot Probability model, which won't be based on a 5-day average and will take account of research we have already carried out into the growth dynamics of Dollar Spot isolates.

For now though, I will of course welcome feedback from those of you out there using our weather stations, leaf wetness sensors and Prodata Reports, drop me an email by all means or better still, come and have a chat at Harrogate.

All the best.

Mark Hunt