Fusariummy

So a week has now passed and the results are in for my alternate cutting and daily rolling study! As can be seen from the above chart Cutting and rolling produced the fastest green speed at about 9.5'-10'. Only rolling produced speeds of about 9.5' and cutting only produced speeds of about 8'-9'. The actual speeds that were achieved this last week are less important than the difference in speed that resulted from the different cultural practices that were done to the greens. Cutting and rolling produced the fastest greens and only cutting produced the slowest. Rolling only produced green speeds that weren't significantly different than either Cutting and Rolling or Cutting only. So from this short, unscientific, probably flawed study I can conclude that if you have an option, Roll every day, Cut every other day. Time will tell me how true this last statement is. For this experiment my Toro 3100 with single point adjustment heads, 11 blade reels was set at 0...

Dollar Spot Fungus on #9 Fairway During some recent disease monitoring we have noticed that conditions are prime for the dollar spot fungus. Dollar spot is a fungus that attacks the leaves of turfgrass during periods of prolonged dew, warm temperatures, nitrogen deficiencies and drought stress. As this is August and the nights are a bit longer now we are seeing a longer period of dew than we would normally see during the months of July. Hole 9 in particular had the worst outbreak of the disease as can been seen in the above photo. #8 Fairways has almost no disease Hole 8 on the other hand has almost no sign of the disease.  Both of these fairways have the same fertility, soil type (rock), cultural practices, and moisture levels. At Pender Harbour we don't apply any pesticides to our fairways.  At first this was due to the prohibitive cost of the chemicals but it has evolved to the point where we really don't need them.  Most disease activity during the summer months reall...

It is easy to get used to a particular way of doing things.  For years we at our course have cut the greens daily during the growing season.  This was just the way we did things.  We felt that this was the best way to provide smooth consistent playing conditions on our putting greens.  For the most part this statement was true.  Two years ago we purchased a roller for our greens.  Most of the literature I had read warned that rolling the greens too frequently lead to compaction and wear damage on the green collars.  It suggested that greens be rolled a maximum of 4 times a week.  Other articles suggested that adequate green speeds could be achieved if you cut at a higher than normal height and rolled more often.  So this is what we did........because that was just the way it was done..... We had our greens mower set at a bench height of 0.125" and we rolled 4 times a week.  Green speeds averaged 7-8' on the STIMP meter.  This sucked...

So in the past month or so I have noticed a lot more bentgrass on our putting greens.  Maybe it is because of the extended Poa annua seed head cycle this year but I'm not totally sure. There seems to be a lot more bentgrass (top middle) on our putting greens these days My observations so far are only speculative as I do not have an actual number related to the amount of bentgrass vs. Poa annua on the greens (and we never have), but I do think that there is more than usual. I have a few theories why we might be seeing a reduction in the Poa annua on our putting greens. Drier Greens:  We have been able to more diligently use and apply water to our putting greens these past few years.  With the upgrades to our green's irrigation systems we are able to more accurately and uniformly apply water.  This coupled with the use of our TDR 200 soil moisture probe  we can apply water only when it is absolutely necessary.  We are able to dry the greens out wit...

This last winter I used the Sunshine Coast Regional District's (SCRD) Online Property Information System (OPIS) to calculate the areas of the greens, tees, fairways and other features of our golf course.  I highly recommend you checking out their site  http://www.scrd.ca/imf/imf.jsp?site=OPIS  as it has a wealth of information on it and is totally free to use.  Although this tool is extremely accurate all of the following numbers are accurate approximations.  As we are in Canada these numbers are in meters and hectares.  If you are old fashioned and use the ridiculous imperial system then you deserve to do the conversions yourself. Look at all those trees to the right of hole 5 at the bottom of the picture! The total area of our golf course property is 42.56 Ha, 12 of which are developed golf course area and 30 of which are undeveloped natural areas.  This means that about 71% of our golf course is natural areas or as I like to call it, "the ...

Stunted turf on the sod farm a month after establishment.  The turf on the Left hasn't been cut in a month and neither has the longer grass in the back. I noticed something kind of neat yesterday while I was cutting some sod from our sod farm. The grass was stunted on the newly grown grass.  This grass originated from the cores that were harvested from our putting greens during our spring aeration.  These grass plants were essentially transplanted from the putting green. Grass that is maintained at a very low cutting height doesn't grow as fast as longer grass.  You can really see this effect this time of year as the rough grows 4-6 inches in length per week where the putting greens might grow a quarter inch.  Imagine if the putting greens grew that fast!!!  The greens would STIMP at 9 in the morning and my lunch time they'd be at 2! Another very interesting thing about this picture is the fact that the newly grown turf hasn't produced any seed head.  ...