Mowing and Rolling vs Clipvol

In my previous two posts I shared how changes to our mowing and rolling frequency resulted in better playing condition for half the price. This post will show how our growth rate contribute to that success and maybe will suggest one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with clipvol. It's the holy grail of turfgrass management.

I initially measured clipvol to optimize our mowing frequency. I didn't want to cut greens if there wasn't any growth and I also didn't want to cut the greens and get too much grass. Over the years I have found that the ideal clipvol is about 20ml/m^2 per day. This is the figure I use in my Growth Ratio and is the target clipvol I aim for when I send out my mower. I can keep green speeds within our target easily with a clipvol within this range as can be seen in my previous post.

What this means is that I want to get the exact same clipvol with every mowing. As I adjust the growth rates, the frequency of mowing will adjust to get this target clipvol.

The table below shows that average clipvol per mowing per month and per year.

For the past 3 years I have been able to hit our target clipvol targets almost perfectly. We cut slightly too much grass in the summer and slightly not enough in the winter.  We could reduce our clipping yields per mow in the summer by cutting more frequently, but this costs us more and isn't needed to meet our green speed goals.

Ultimately, all of these efficiency gains, cost savings, and playability enhancements aren't possible if we don't have control of the growth. If we grow the grass too fast we will have to mow more frequently. If we grow it too slow we will likely have to spend more on fungicide. If we can get the growth just right, over and over, we can get good conditions for the lowest cost over and over...that's the theory anyway.

Less time spent getting the conditions we want leaves more time for stuff like collar damn removal