Fusariummy

Well there goes another fall aeration! I wish I could say that it went off without a hitch but that just wouldn't be aeration at Pender Harbour.  Last year we purchased a back up aerator and it's a good thing we did because the old one tried to die a few times and the newer one wasn't much better.  Our topdresser also finally died and we could only finish spreading the sand thanks to the guys at the Porpoise Bay Golf Club in Sechelt for lending us their spreader. Despite having one of the largest gravel and sand pits in the world only minutes away we have a very hard time getting a high quality sand.  They even advertise on their  web site  about how good their sand is for golf courses.  In order to get this sand though, you need to order an entire golf course's worth! This is what the sand looks like shortly after being spread. Blowing off the rock in the wet weather. This is what we are left with after blowing.  We then shovel the rock into the r...

For years we as turfgrass managers have been taught to make preventative pesticide applications. The logic behind this was that if you could prevent the problem you would in turn have to use less chemicals to control the pest. In some cases this is true. There are some pests out there that you just don't want to get. In the case of cool season turfgrass fungal diseases during the summer I think that you can afford to skip the preventatives and here's why. Dollar spot is a fungus that can wreak havoc on poorly maintained putting greens. When we get sick it is often for a reason. You get a cold because you forgot to wash your hands or touched something that was infected. You get heart problems because you smoked for 20 years and had a poor diet and ate deep fried everything for lunch. You get diabetes because you ate too much sugars when you were young. Out turf is exactly the same. When it gets sick there is often a reason why. There are many things that can kill our g...

A few weeks ago I came across a really cool App for my iPhone.  It is called Sunseeker    and it allows you to see the path of the sun for any day of the year compared to what your phone "sees" through its camera.  This is a very powerful tool for superintendents.  Shade is a very big problem for most turf managers as it is very difficult to grow healthy turf if there isn't enough direct sunlight.  This tool can help you determine how much light your turf will get for any time of the year and also showcase which trees need to be removed to increase the available light on your grass. #5 Green looking South East.  This green has high disease pressure due to shade.  This week the Fusarium returned to my putting greens.  During the warmer drier summer Fusarium usually isn't a problem as I usually have full control over the environmental conditions surrounding my putting greens.  This time of year I have almost no control over the ...

In British Columbia we are facing a cosmetic pesticide ban.  The NDP has introduced Bill M 203 before the legislature.  If this bill passes, we will no longer be able to use pesticides on putting greens after five years.  This would impact the golf industry in our province immensely.  Many courses would not be able to compete and many of us as turf managers will lose our jobs. Currently our associations are working on our behalf to fight the bill.  A good article about the fight and what we can do can be found here .  Fighting the bill is only one thing that we as turf managers can do. What will happen if the bill passes?  Will you be able to produce adequate conditions our your course?  Will your course be able to compete?  What will you do if pesticides were taken as one of your options for turfgrass pest control?  We cannot just sit idly and hope that the bill is defeated, doing would be irresponsible on our part.  We are ...

Ok so here is another Google Docs Spreadsheet that I made that will calculate your stimp meter readings and will display them in a spreadsheet.  This isn't that wimpy iStimp app that is out there.  This is for the real "big boy" Stimp meter readings.  It is simply a way that you can input data on your phone into a spreadsheet that automatically sorts, calculates and visually shows you the consistency of your putting greens.  .  You can find the file  here . Open the file Go to File, Make a Copy and rename the file whatever you want Now if you don't already have a google sites maintenance website you need to make one.  Make a google site and embed the form from the spreadsheet into it somewhere.  If you want to know how to do this....google it;) Now you can open the website on your smartphone and enter data directly from your smartphone in the field and automatically have it entered into your spreadsheet.  Cool!  The spreadsheet only cal...

For years I have been trying to monitor the turfgrass diseases at my golf course.  Despite good intentions of writing all of my observations down, I rarely put my observations on paper.  I had a great sheet made up that I could take around the course and record any disease observations I would make.  In reality this never happened.  I think I used the paper record once( the day I made it).  The problem was that most of the time I noticed the disease I was either on a machine or didn't have my record book handy.  I come from a small golf course where I do not have the luxury of spending hours a day making observations. The problem with this system was that it was too time consuming to make the observation.  Furthermore the data that I would have collected would have been too difficult to interpret.  All of this information would have to be manually entered into a spreadsheet so that it could be easily graphed.  Therefore I made the observation...