Fusariummy

For the past 3 years the organic material in the top 2 cm of our greens has seen a steady increase. I discussed in a recent post about the value of time series comparisons for fertilizer recommendations and I think the same is true for organic matter management. Would you say we are doing a good job managing our surface organic material levels? I don't know about you, but for me, we are not doing enough and the data is clear. Regardless of the conditions of the greens today (they are pretty damn good BTW) the upward trend will likely change the way they perform in the future so I am more comfortable with a trend line that is flat or unchanged year to year. I've always found aerification a bit confusing and never felt like I had the tools to make a good decision. I was essentially guessing which didn't make me feel good when the guess resulted in massive disruption to our playing surfaces. Was it justified? How could I be sure? I started measuring the Total Organic Material

In my last post I discussed how too much aerification might be a bad thing and wondered if more is better or if there is an ideal amount of compaction that we can maintain to maximize soil health and help us reduce the inputs that we currently require to maintain our putting greens. Inputs like sand, fertilizer, tines, fungicide and water. I then shared how my greens have never performed better based on some anecdotal observations. Yesterday I decided that if I was going to try and aerifiy less or not at all that I would need to measure the things that aerification is supposed to manage so that I can track their change over time. Simply not doing something without knowing that it's working is simply a dumb thing to do. As usual, there were a ton of products that I needed to buy to figure out this kind of hokus pokus but then I remembered that I'm not doing super precise science here. I want to get a general idea of how my greens perform and relate that to my observations on ho

Have you ever noticed a disease outbreak immediately following aerification? I'm pretty sure most people have and this is why it is common practice to spray a fungicide before aerifying. Why does this happen? I always blamed the disease outbreak on the mechanical stress we put the grass under. I also noticed that the abrasive practices used to drag the sand into the aeration holes would spread the disease like crazy. Fusarium Spread from verticutting after aerification Niels Dokkuma from the Koninklijke Nederlandse Golf Federatie visited my course in February of 2017 to see what I was doing to reduce the pesticide use on my golf course because the Netherlands are facing an almost complete ban on pesticides in 2020 so they need to learn whatever they can to avoid disaster. He asked me a seemingly simple question. "Do you think aerification makes disease worse?" Of course I agreed with him and went into discussion about how we spread the disease around and the mechanical st

I came across this on twitter this morning. Noticed this while out cutting some leaners this morning. Sand channel on left quad-tine core, channel on right solid-tine. #issolidbetter ? pic.twitter.com/OiGXBFjOZ5 — Rob Steger (@SaginawCCturf) February 23, 2017 And then this rely: @TheFortressTurf Tried solid tines for the first time last fall, incorporated 30% more sand into the profile than we usually do. 3/4" — Rob Steger (@SaginawCCturf) February 23, 2017 This got me thinking about what I have noticed on my course. For the past few years we haven't been pulling a core and I also noticed that we were able to get about 30% more sand into our greens at aeration time but never really though much of it as it relates to solid vs core aeration. I think that when we core, it is difficult to get the entire plug removed. This leaves some of the holes still partially filled with soil/sand and reduces the amount of sand we can get into the hole. Getting a good core is dependant on a

I'm going to try and talk myself out of aerating in the traditional way each spring. Won't you join me? Last year I asked " Is Core Aeration a Thing of the Past ?" This year I am wondering if solid or core aeration where sand is worked into holes is needed at all? Here I will try and find some reasons why I should and should not aerate my greens in the spring time. Before we start I'll go over the traditional reasons to aerate and then I will discuss why I might be able to get those benefits in different ways. Traditionally we core aerate to remove organic matter, reduce compaction, increase soil air and increase drainage. That's pretty much it. Core aeration and filing solid holes with sand are two ways to do this but surely there has to be other ways especially with the new developments we have made in the past 10 years or so? For the past 3 years we have been deep tine aerating our greens in early October. This was because we had developed some troublesome

I'm getting to the point where I've been around long enough that I have seen a lot of different practices come and go at my golf club. In the 10 years I have been a superintendent here at Pender Harbour we have made a lot of changes for the better. We all know that each course is unique and no one solution fits all situations. Here I will share some of those things that I used to do but no longer do and why. Maybe I will inspire you to ask yourself if these practices are right for your course. 1. Verticutting I used to verticut regularly. Twice a year I would go deep and aggressive and once a month I would go nice and light. I haven't used my verticutters for a few years and here's why; When I evaluate a practice I like to ask myself what is it accomplishing and can I accomplish the same thing for less money or in a way that will help me achieve my goals of reducing pesticides and disease pressure. The purpose of verticutting is to remove surface organic matter. Verticu

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

Aeration season is coming up and I just wanted to mention a few thoughts I have on the subject. I can't speak for everyone but it seems that it is common practice to apply a rather heavy nitrogen app just prior to aeration to speed the recovery. This makes sense as we are often forced to aerate when the temperatures and growth potential are not ideal for recovery but ideal to minimize the disruption to golfers. The pressure the golfers put on us to have perfect playing conditions immediately after aeration force us to do whatever it takes to get the greens back into shape. One of the things that I have talked a lot about on this blog is growth potential and nitrogen fertility and how growth rates are influenced more by temperature than by how much nitrogen we apply. Of course the amount of nitrogen applied has some impact on growth but if the temperatures aren't there it will do little. 4 days post aeration, no additional nitrogen applications made. 12mm holloww tine. For the p