Fall a Great Time to Spray Weeds

We have just finished up our fall rough spraying of broadleaf and clover today.  We have been working on spraying areas of our roughs which are mostly fescue over the last few weeks, working around weather and mowing. 

It sounds like this might be late in the season for these applications, but last year when we really went after our weed issues in our roughs, we saw the great rewards this spring.  While I don't have pictures that justify the results, we could visually see the two boom passes I made last fall, where dandelions were absent and clover populations were less. 

This year I decided to expand the areas in the roughs to where I was making three to four passes with the sprayer to spray the clover and broadleaf weeds.  The results so far have been good. 

As you can see, there are some areas where the fescue roughs are really thin.  Part of this issue is these areas have never been fertilized in the 13 years I have been here, it has never been part of the budget.  Of course the thin turf leads to these specific weed problems.  But at a cost of $12.45 an acre, we are able to treat these areas for weeds.

We can't apply a fertilizer for that price.  Our golfers don't seem to have an issue, well except when we do have a lot of rain and we fall somewhat behind in mowing our roughs. 


I am hoping to look into at least fertilizing green and tee banks, and maybe a couple of roughs a year.  But when budgets are tight, the first area I cut is roughs, so in turn I can support the programs developed for greens, tees and fairways.



I do remember at a previous course, I had arrived to find tremendous grub damage and weak roughs.  I set forth that next season to treat all the roughs, (well the whole course actually) 90 acres with a fertilizer/insecticide combo product.  At the time the cost was $150 an acre (now with the insecticide being off patent, we can make the same applications for $60-75 per acre).  So we treated for a total cost of $13,500 dollars.  The following year we had to make some cuts, and after attending a seminar (where the observation was made, about beetles not laying eggs in far areas of the golf course that were not irrigated) and looking at our grub issues after that initial application, I decided to only treat 50 acres for a savings of $7,500.  All the while I was able to save and continue a greens program that was working great, and also my other fertilizer programs.  This provides some strong healthy weed free turf.  So weed free in fact that when a visiting turfgrass extension professor visited the course he asked what I was using for a pre-emergent, I said nothing since we couldn't afford it.  (Of course I didn't know the history and the previous superintendents could have been applying pre-emergent out the wazoo).  After that my motto has been the best pre-emergent is enough fertilizer. 

I do enjoy the number crunching from the discussion above, and that is our next project, to develop our agronomic plans to fit into our next budget cycle.

Thanks for reading!

Mel