Fusariummy

Most of our greens have slowly transitioned towards bentgrass dominated swards in the past few years In a recent post I discussed how the nutrient content of the soils was different depending on the depth and outlined some ideas of how we could use this to our advantage. We can keep poa super happy with more consistency (it's known to be temperamental and this is probably why) or we can use it to suppress poa while promoting other turf species like bentgrass or fescue. There are major differences in nutrient content at depth and it is useful to understand this but it is also cumbersome to test at various depths or tissue test every week like some might do. Instead, we can use our Supercharged fertilizer and clipvol records to help us understand how much nutrient we are removing from the turfgrass system and adjust our fertilizer applications to either under-fertilize or apply a sufficient amount of each nutrient to favor one turfgrass species over the other. We can estimate how mu

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

Organic is seen by most (by most I mean the uneducated public) as the best way to manage a golf course. Over the years I've tried to go down that road but found that there were too many problems with going "organic." Long story short, I think we can do better than organic. Putting labels on things has always bothered me. Committing to organic or vegetarianism or veganism or low carb is too limiting for me. Yes, they are probably good targets to work towards but if you commit to these ways of thinking you can hide yourself from other ideas that might actually be better than these restricting ideologies require. The environmental impact of my golf course operation is one of my main concerns as a golf course superintendent. I don't want to do things that negatively impact the environment and will look for ways to reduce this impact in any way I can. Of course in the back of my mind there are costs to be aware of and course conditions to maintain as well (who am I kidding

On the West Coast of Canada we are now well into the time of year where fusarium is the dominant disease on turf. Reflecting on the summer of 2016 I can't help but feel somewhat defeated by turf disease. I required a traditional fungicide for dollar spot for the first time in 4 years on my greens. While this has left me feeling down about my disease management plan this year a closer reflection shows that while I lost the battle to dollar spot, I won the battle with every other turf disease on my course this summer. Looking back at the data, the battles I have had in previous years, what other courses in my area were dealing with I can feel really good about my disease management this past year. To recap the requirement of traditional fungicide on my course this year so far is rather easy. The last fungicide application of the winter was on Feb 22. From that time I was able to keep disease levels at acceptable levels until Sept 4 when I needed to take action against dollar spot. Th

I have been putting this post off for a while now. It seems that whenever I post about my success with disease management on my course I immediately get bit in the ass. Karma or something.. Who cares about the crooked flag when the greens are disease free? So for this reason I am hesitant to write this post sharing my experience over the past 4 months battling turf disease on my course. Here's the problem, there isn't any . Maybe if I type it really small it won't be heard by mother nature and she will spare me in the coming months. Here's the thing, since my last traditional pesticide application on Feb 22nd, there has been almost no disease on my greens. I'm the most surprised person really because never in my entire career have I seen something even close to this. Every day I venture out to inspect my greens I am expecting chaos, total destruction, disease apocalypse, but to my disbelief the greens continue to be more or less disease free. Aside from a few minor