Fusariummy

When I finally started collecting data in a meaningful way I began to find that there is all sorts of questions that I can ask the data that I may not have previously thought of. Why would I want to ask new questions that I previously didn't need? Well, there are many things that I can do to improve our operations but it is often difficult to quantify how effective these strategies are. One of the things I recently asked of my equipment data, was to summarize how often we mow and roll our greens broken down by month and year. There are many decimals because we sometimes skip mowing specific greens and my equipment database can determine the percent of the total area maintained each day. For most this is probably needlessly complicated but nonetheless I calculate it because I can. I do not have data before 2019 because I wasn't the superintendent before that time, but I estimate that the greens would have been cut 200 times and rolled 100 times based off annual equipment hour me...

Unless you have been living under a rock you have probably heard about Chat GPT, a chat bot created by the company OpenAI that is leaps and bounds better than anything created so far. I decided to see how good ChatGPT was at greenkeeping. Wow. Not too bad. As a generalized summary of green speed it isn't too far off especially with the caveat at the end suggesting the guidance of a golf course superintendent. Even the Machine understands the importance of a qualified superintendent. I wish more golfers did the same! haha. I then asked it about mowing. Again, not too bad especially with the recommendation of professional turfgrass managers supervision. What about rolling? Generally, this is still probably the recommended advice although my experience of rolling over the past 12 years would suggest that we can safely roll up to twice daily without serious concern as long as you do it under the guidance of a golf course superintendent which the AI continues to remind me.  Awesome.

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...

Why the hell would you want to do that? You can search the internet for reasons to promote bentgrass grain and I assure you, you won't find much. This is no April Fools joke. In the world of promoting bentgrass over poa there are a ton of strategies that superintendents use. From managing moisture, to reduced fertilizer and pesticides, to practicing the disturbance theory and allowing the poa to die in winter, it seems that if you want to be successful with bentgrass management you need to do it all. Coarse, grainy bentgrass growing over top of, and shading out the poa. One of the tools that supers in the States can use that we can't use in Canada are the growth regulators that hurt poa but not bentgrass. So that approach simply isn't feasible for us up north. There are many differences between how poa and creeping bentgrass grow. Poa is upright, compact and very dense. Bentgrass grows laterally, has a thicker leaf blade, and although newer varieties are a lot more dense, t...

Easily my favorite tweet of the week was: @PenderSuper This was a couple years ago 2014 Greens were "rolled" by mistake with greens roller 3 days after seeding pic.twitter.com/q9zg7J5UcZ — Robert Lee (@SPRobertLee) March 22, 2017 And in typical Twitter fashion the idea snowballed to produce my second favorite tweet of the week: @PenderSuper @SPRobertLee Good seed to soil contact here from Bobcat tire. pic.twitter.com/cHAuj6v2Bp — GaryC (@GaryCinChicago) March 23, 2017 Obviously, this is common knowledge but to see such a clear example is pretty cool. You can even see the gap between the steering rollers on his Tru Turf Roller. Yes, you can even tell the brand of roller based on the establishment pattern. This is something that Dr, Thom Nikolai also found in his rolling research. Check out the following video about rolling for seed bed preparation. While it might seem like common sense to refrain from rolling during establishment, Thom has some advise that might surprise ...

Ok, so this is going to be a long one, but if you struggle with dollar spot and want to maybe reduce its impact on your grass and budget I promise it will be worth your time. Last week while at the 2017 Golf Industry Show I was a presenter at a panel discussion called " Successful Low-input Turf Management: Is it practical ?" One of the things I discussed was how the growth potential formula got my nitrogen rates on track and helped reduce the impact that dollar spot had on my course. After this talk and my release of the slides on my blog (linked above) I had a few people reach out with their similar dollar spot success. Of course I asked to see their fertilizer records and by no surprise to me, during times of typical dollar spot disease pressure, they were applying their highest rates of nitrogen (among other things). During my presentation on the growth potential and the MLSN I urged participants to take their growth potential nitrogen use recommendations and compare it t...

OK that title is a bit much but bare with me. It's no secret I'm a fan of rolling. It has a ton of benefits from faster and smoother greens to disease suppression. Ever since I got my first roller back in 2010 we have been rolling daily and cutting every other day or some version of this. Basically we roll the greens 2 times for every mow without significant impacts on playability of the greens. If anything this schedule of greens maintenance results in more consistent playing conditions . The benefits of this are obvious when it comes to mower maintenance. If you use a mower half as much it will require about half the maintenance and last about twice as long. For me it has made it possible for us to use our only triplex mower for both greens and tees . We only need one mower for 2 jobs. One mower, Two sets of cutting units This year we looked at fuel use savings. Aside from the cost of fuel, we are also concerned with the use of fossil fuels and ways we can reduce our reliance...

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...