Fusariummy

A few posts back I talked about how I found it useful to compare a 30 day running average growth ratio to a 30 day running average nitrogen genki. This would tell me  how my grass was growing and how much nitrogen I had applied compared to the standard level which I have determined to be about 2/g nitrogen per square meter per month at a 100% growth potential. After thinking and using that tool for a few months now, I wondered about the other nutrients. Last year I had issues with the grass not growing as expected and it turned out to be a phosphorus deficiency probably made worse by regular phosphite applications. The growth ratio model showed that the grass was growing too slow and in reality it probably was as we suffered from issues caused by slow growing turf such as Anthracnose! The more experience I get with the growth ratio model, the more valuable it becomes as a tool to help me keep the growth rate where I want it and plant health issues to the minimum. Most issues I hav...

Smokey skies and high growth rates go hand in hand for some reason. I've experimented with how to best visualize growth rate data in a way that helps me make informed decisions about how much fertilizer I should apply so that the grass grows at the right rate without growing too fast or too slow because both of these circumstances can lead to less than ideal conditions on the golf course. A few years ago I came us with the turfgrass speedo . (NSFW link haha).This helped me compare actual growth to ideal growth but that was it. I couldn't see how any of the tools I had to manipulate growth were impacting that growth. A few months back Jon Merchant  shared how he visualized his #clipvol data combined with the turfgrass genki . To me this was a game changer. It instantly allows you to compare your growth rate and fertilizer rates compared to the "standard amount." The standard amount is something that you can determine as a turfgrass manager based on your experience and ...

Last fall I came up with the idea of comparing actual growth to ideal growth to get a ratio of growth. I called this tool the turfgrass speedo . Ideal growth was calculated using the growth potential formula on my weather modeler spreadsheet and would use the ideal monthly nitrogen rate to determine how much grass should be harvested based on actual conditions not just a date on the calendar. The idea was to growth the grass at the right speed, not just as slow as possible. Growing the grass too slow is worse than growing it too fast. When you grow it too fast you get excess thatch and have to mow it more but when you grow it too slow it can't handle the traffic or stress of any kind really. I had made all sorts of observations about growth in the past and the model seemed good. This winter I started a new job at a new course and was excited to see how the model worked at a different course. For the first 5 months of the year the model was working perfectly. It suggested growth was...