Fusariummy

The other day I was reading another excellent blog post on Bob Shop about his air line installation . He mentioned that he was going to post the tire pressures on a list that would be posted on the wall near the air hose outside the shop. This would make it easy for everyone to see what the tire pressure was supposed to be set at. This got me thinking of something that I have done to ensure that my staff know the proper tire pressure for each piece of equipment. I write the pressure requirement on the rim right beside the valve stem. This makes it quick and easy for them to always know the correct pressure for the tire.

This week I had a discussion on Twitter about a statement made that phosphite use will help reduce the environmental impact of pesticides on the golf course. The guru of phosphite in turf, John Dempsey, stated this in his thesis abstract. 250 word abstract with 2 words to spare :) pic.twitter.com/0eNkMIBZOu — John Dempsey (@J_J_Dempsey) April 22, 2015 I have done quite a bit of work looking at the environmental impact of different products that we apply on the golf course using Cornell University's EIQ calculator . The EIQ calculation is, in my opinion, the most comprehensive and meaningful way to measure the impact of certain products used for pest control on the golf course. I wrote about this in a blog post " Sustainable Pesticide Use: Tracking Pesticide Cost and Environmental Impact ." I also shared my observations after tracking my EIQ for an entire season in a post " EIQ Tracking, My First Year ." Tracking the EIQ has been an enlightening experience for me...

I just got my soil tests last week for the Global Soil Survey ! Getting soil test results back is just about as good as Christmas! This is the third time that I have taken part in the GSS. Since my first GSS in 2013 I have followed the guidelines religiously saving a ton of money and seeing no real difference in turfgrass quality. Arguably my greens could actually be in better shape now than before I started using the MLSN guidelines. Here are the results of my GSS in 2013 ppm In 2014 ppm And 2015 ppm The GSS requires that you take samples from areas of good performing turfgrass. Each year I have varied the exact locations for my samples. The reason for this is to compare areas of good turf performance but on different microclimates or turf species etc to see if there is some relationship to what I am seeing to nutrient levels in the soil. From what I can the soil nutrient levels have little to do with what I have observed. They then tell you how your test results are compared to the M...

Mid April has always been the time of the year when the course really comes alive on the West Coast of Canada. In the past I always attributed this green up flush to the weather but also to my heavy spring fertilizer applications. Before I got onto liquid fertilizer applications and the growth potential model for predicting fertilizer requirements based on air temperatures I used to put out a heavy fertilizer application in March and then every 2 months until October each year. Now the rates vary depending on the average temperature for each month. The rates in the early spring are quite low with March seeing 3 bags of 21-0-0 going down on 5.4ha of turf and April seeing 4 bags go down. This is quite the contrast to the old way we did things with a granular fertilizer blend going down with about 40 bags every 2 months! Now we put down about 40 bags for the entire season. The last granular fertilizer application on fairways was done in June of 2013 and the conditions have only improved. ...

Recently there was an interesting article about how some superintendents have started to forgo their core aeration practices in favor of less disruptive solid tine aeration with regular topdressing. It seems like we have been told to core aerate forever and the consequences of not pulling a core can be dire. What has changed and how are these guys getting away without core aerating their turf? Is this a thing of the past? It wasn't too long ago that fertilizer (specifically nitrogen) rates were much higher on golf courses. A friend of mine had a USGA consultation in the mid '90s and their recommendation was to increase their nitrogen rates to about 9lbs N/1000sq ft on their putting greens! That's about 3x what they now normally apply each season. With nitrogen rates this high there is no wonder why we needed to aggressively remove organic matter 2 or more times per season! What a drag core aeration is ;) I have heard a lot about how nitrogen rates are being reduced signif...

A solid front roller reduced gouging during the wet and soft conditions of the winter. Two years ago when we got new mowers I was able to get 14 blade reels for my greens mower. Wow do they every produce a great quality of cut! At the same height of cut (HOC) I was able to get an extra foot of green speed. Struggling to get adequate green speeds became a thing of the past. We were also able to get walk behind quality from a triplex. SWEET! The only problem I had was that during the winter I struggled to keep the density up, and the aggressiveness of the mowers would gouge when conditions were soft. I LOVED the summer quality of cut but needed to come up with something for the winter. I had heard of guys using solid front rollers for bentgrass promotion with the theory that they produced less disruption. I'm not crazy pushing for bentgrass (at least not admitting to it publicly yet lol) but less disruption was exactly what I needed during the winter. I slapped an old set of solid fr...

One sweet mower, two sets of heads Two years ago I put together a plan to replace our aging maintenance equipment with new leased modern equipment. At the time, we were spending almost as much as our current lease costs each year on parts alone! There was also the time I spent fixing the equipment and the time my staff were not working efficiently as their mowers seemed to be broken more often than not. This was a great opportunity for us to both modernize our fleet, but also build in some equipment inefficiencies specific to our course and operational needs. In the past we had 2 mowers set aside for mowing tees and greens. Each mower was basically the same but the cutting units were set at different heights of cut. This worked great but when I was looking at getting new equipment on lease it was just too costly to do this with new equipment. What I decided to do was get one really nice mower that could do it all. We needed a mower that was all wheel drive, was versatile on all types o...

This past winter I was inspired by research out of Oregon State University by Clint Mattox on alternate control methods for the control of Microdochium nivale. I wasn't ready to take the plunge on greens but thought that I could adapt their findings to my tees and approaches. They used iron sulfate and sulfur to get reasonably good control of the disease over the winter on poa putting greens. I wrote about my early success with this plan earlier this past winter. My tees are predominately ryegrass and bentgrass with a tough of poa. My approaches and green surrounds are mostly poa but have some bentgrass as well. A great deal of the disease control success can be attributed to the incredibly mild winter we have had. Despite the nice weather there were times of high disease pressure on the course. Early January we were socked in with fog and the disease exploded. The recent warm and wet weather has also set the disease going on the putting greens and approaches. Here is my applicat...