Greens and Goosegrass

I thought I would talk about our biggest weed issue, not because we have more goosegrass on greens compared to other areas, (although some years it might seem like it), but goosegrass is more problematic on putting surfaces.  As the photos below show, how problematic goosegrass can be on putting greens.


This picture was taken in 2015 on our fifth green in August of that year.  August has been typical of the time we start seeing goosegrass in greens.  Not all greens will have it, and some that do will have varying degrees of it.  (Some of the color seems a little off because I blew the picture up some and also due to I think some clouds that day.)






This is from our chipping green this past September of 2017.  We did start seeing breakthrough of goose in August of this past year as well.

Our 10th green is the green I actually will watch for goosegrass to emerge first.  Some seasons it might be the only green that will have goosegrass, along with a few heavily traffic areas on greens.  Other seasons the goose is a little more widespread.



I think why 10 green sees more goosegrass could be for some reason it tends to dry out a little quicker than many of our other greens.  It was constructed in a different time frame, and could have maybe a little bit different particle size greens mix than other greens.  It is also possible the greens mix itself might be a little deeper causing the perched water table to be deeper and allowing the green to dry out quicker.  All which causes the green to be watered more and we wonder if that is breaking down the preemergent application?  When talking with other superintendents, they seem to have more problems with goosegrass during very wet seasons.  This past season we saw 15.49" of rain in April, 8.8" in May, 8.03" in June, and 7.39" of rain in August.  Well above normal.  In 2015, the picture of # 5 green came from, we had 8" of rain in May, 6.6" in June, 8.35" in July, and 7.36" in August.  (All information from data collecting).

The pre-emergent product we have been using for quite awhile (I would say 10+ years) is dithiopyr in a fertilizer combination.  Prior to last year it was a 0-0-20 w/.162% dithiopyr which we would apply in 2 split applications.  The first one pretty much two weeks after our spring greens aeration, which would be somewhere around the 15th of April.  We were pretty darn consistent with this application, only missing the target date by a day or two if we missed at all.  The follow up application would occur usually 6 weeks later, shooting for the last week of May.  If we missed this date, we could be a week or two behind for that second application.  I have to wonder, was that part of the cause of my problem?  Last year we switched to a different product, same active ingredient of dithiopyr.  We went with a 0-0-5 with .103% dithiopyr and followed a highly used program timing in our area.  We still made that first application on the second week of April, we made the second application three weeks later, with the last application three weeks after that, (same timing as our second application of the 0-0-20 product)  We still came up with some goosegrass in August.  Was it the 32+" of rain in April, May and June?  Or was it possible that I missed the first application date?  Goosegrass will germinate when soil temperature averages stay in the 60-65 range at 2" depths.  While I regularly check soil temperatures, could I have missed my window due to checking a soil temperature during the cool early morning, or when I might have missed taking the soil temperature while doing one of my many other chores, or those couple of days off?  Did both issues play a part?  (My philosophy is it usually isn't just one thing that causes an issue).  This year I am committing myself to not miss that soil temperature window.

We will again go with the 0-0-5 with .103% dithiopyr with the same 3 split applications.  Two exceptions will be on # 10 green I will do two split applications of another product that contains Bensulide and Oxadiazon, and I will split the practice green up into fourths, with the 0-0-5 being applied to two areas, and the Bensulide and Oxadiazon being applied to the other two locations.  The other reason I am using four sections of the practice green is there will be two fertilizer trials going on as well.

So how will we attack any goosegrass that has emerged?  We will continue to pull some of the plants we see during course setup and while mowing.  As the pictures below show, these are some tough weeds, but fairly easy to pull with the right tools, and if they get a little large on us.

       

 One of the other tricks we have tried with some success is loading up a plastic tube that has a sponge on the bottom, with chemicals and dabbing that chemical onto the goosegrass plant.  As the picture to the right indicates.  We have used MSMA because it works great on goosegrass, it is very cheap, and we can still use it on the golf course in small settings by spot applying.  The problem we had with using MSMA, was any MSMA that touched the bentgrass next to the goosegrass was killed as well, leaving the areas we treated with small dead spots, visually unappealing.  Unfortunately I did not get some good pictures of the results.  

Our other chemical option we will try this next season is using the herbicide Pylex.  We did some trials with Pylex this last season, all in our large turf sprayer.  I am going to dedicate another blog to the whole process of trying the Pylex, as it has a variety of uses, and we sprayed a variety of areas with it.  The area in this blog that I will show is the back of our chipping green.  I mixed the Pylex at a rate of 1/2 oz per acre.  The results are shown to the right.  Some of the classic ghosting signs are in the picture, this is the results of using the Pylex.  I have seen some people use the Pylex in dobber tools with good results.  The toughest part is mixing the small amount of product (.032 oz per gallon or 1 ml for my Canadian friends, I guess the metric system can be handy).  It is best suggested to mix that small amount of product in about 8 oz of water then add it to the backpack sprayer or dobber.   

This is an ongoing project to find the best solutions to the issue of goosegrass on our greens. 

I am hoping to talk in a future post about how we have worked to control goosegrass on tees and fairway areas.  What we have tried, how well it has worked, and how we look to go forward in that issue.  Looking at both pre and post emergent herbicides.

If anyone wants to share their successful programs, or see how we can make some improvements to our current programs, I hope you will share your secrets.

Thanks for reading!

Mel

Weather Data Interpretations

I have been rolling around in my head how I planned to show the value of my data collection, in relation to certain issues I continue to see on the course.  As I write this, what I have seen from the weather the past couple of weeks, has played a part in what I write about today.  

As I related in my last post, I have been tracking certain weather phenomenon over the many years at my facility.  A recent discovery this past week is one that I have been trying to track yearly.

                       



Forsythia bushes are good indicators for the average layman as to be a good time for making preemergent applications for crabgrass.  The upper left picture was taken this past week on February 14th.  I'm a little surprised about seeing these buds just starting to swell this early in the season, especially with the winter we have had so far.  The picture on the upper right and to the left are from 2017 when we actually saw some visible blooming of the bush from a distance.  We hadn't seen that quite yet this season, but looking at the 10 day forecast, I'm expecting it any time soon.    

Some stats to ponder:  So far in 2018 we saw the buds just starting to swell on February 14th.  This past January our average low temperature was -4 degrees below the average low of 22 degrees.  The average high we saw for January was average.  As of February 13th the average low was -7 degrees below the average, and the average high was -8 below the average.  (Of course after the high in the 70's on February 15th that could have changed).

On February 13th, 2017, as the picture shows above, we were seeing the Forsythia actually blooming.  That didn't surprise me much, because in January of 2017 our average high temperatures where 6 degrees above the average, and the average low temperatures were 4 degrees above the average as well.  In February the average high was running almost 10 degrees above the average, and the average low was 11 degrees above the average low.  A total opposite of what we are seeing this year.

In 2016 we saw Forsythia buds on February 22nd.  Our January temperatures were average and the February temperatures were above average, + 3 above the low, + 5 above the high.        

In 2015 I didn't see the Forsythia bloom because I was out due to a surgery, but in 2014 we didn't see the Forsythia bloom until March 21st, and in 2013, we didn't see the Forsythia bloom until March 12th.  

While trained professionals do not usually rely on just using Forsythia blooming as their set in stone guide to start making preemergent applications, I do use the appearance of blooms as a guide to step up my soil temperature tracking and logging them into my weather logs.  When I take soil temperatures to monitor for preemergent applications, I will take them at a 2" depth.  I also take them in a USGA sand based green, and I know sand seems to heat up quicker then native soils and will cool down also.  As I analyzed past springs soil temperatures, I would see even with some warm temperatures and mild springs much fluctuation in the day to day readings.

As I studied applications dates and compared them to soil temperatures, what I did find was on some applications, such as green applications for crabgrass and goosegrass, I was very consistent with application dates over the years, but they didn't correlate always with soil temperatures in regards to when those applications should have been made.  And then I wondered, was it the application timing that caused some failure and allowed goosegrass to appear?  Or as I noted in some years, could it be something else?  Such as in 2017, we had 15.5" of rain, in May 8.8" of rain, in August 7.4" of rain?  In 2015, we had 8" of rain in May, 6.6" in June, 8.4" in July and 7.4" in August.  Is the rain playing a part as well?

 






When it came to other areas of the golf course such as tees or fairways, I observed more of a consistency problem with application timings.  Some years I felt timing was excellent, and other years I know the timing of applications had to lead to some of the issues.  What I did wonder was these areas being soil instead of sand based, did soil temperatures and/or rain play parts in those issues?  The other question I have and can't answer, was, yes we seem to get goosegrass every year, and it is most noticeable in certain areas where it will be worse than other areas, but I also don't have true data from season to season how bad was it?  As I analyze my programs, using this past data, I have given myself more questions than I had before.

So moving forward to take advantage of the data and evaluate my programs, I am going to work on taking soil temperatures from both the sand based greens and also the soil based tee/fairway areas.  When it comes to figuring out the severity of weed problems, I will work on finding a way to document the amount of weeds in a given area.  I will also map, especially in fairways, higher density weed populations and look at treating those areas with different products to gage their effectiveness.

I will discuss in my next post, certain weed problems in certain areas on the course.  I will use my data, from weather to application dates, to products, to discuss past issues, and try to figure out solutions and conduct trials to find ways to improve course conditions and develop programs that work.  Hopefully those with more experience can pass along some suggestions.

Thanks so much for reading!

Mel    

Mother Nature Always Wins

As I sit staring out at the ice covering the trees, the road, even Lucy when she does go outside, lead me to my thoughts today.  It is something I had been working on for the last week in my head, but Mother Nature cleared it up for me with the weather of these past two weeks.  Missouri seems to be a special weather phenomenal location, of course this might be true of many locations in the transition zones.  My previous locals have either been the deep south such as Florida, or in true northern climates such as New Jersey and Northern Indiana.  Last weekend here in Missouri we had rain, ice, and some snow, the course shutdown from Sunday to Wednesday as we waited for the snow to melt.  By Friday we were back up into the 50's.  Along came more ice yesterday (Saturday) leaving roads almost impassible, yet tomorrow will be back up into the 40's and by Thursday we could very well reach 70 degrees.

                         

What leads me to discuss weather was seeing a comment about not relying on dates of the calendar to make certain applications, and me reviewing my data to figure out why some of my programs might not be working as well as I had hoped.  I will say I am pretty good about tracking some of my data.  I will go out to my weather station regularly (as in daily) during the season and record my minimum and maximum temperatures, soil temperatures (sand based green), wind speed, precipitation, relative humidity, and evapotranspiration (ET).  I will mainly use the temperatures daily in season to update my Growing Degree Day (GDD) chart, which I use to monitor when I will make my next growth regulator application.  The soil temperature I find very important early in the season, as it will direct me to make preemergent weed and fairy ring applications.  Wind and relative humidity plays a part in how closely we will monitor our soil moistures (or should I say, prioritize the monitoring), and the ET will be used to help decide how much irrigation we will provide if needed.

                    

Above is a picture of our weather station. Our ET gauge is on the left, our min/max thermometer in the center, and our soil thermometer and wind/relative humidity reading tool is on the right.  It also can read dew points which I heard about in a seminar, which might be a better way to track overall drying conditions, but that is something I will have to work with and figure out how to interpret the readings into my data.  I have to say, I know many of my colleagues have weather stations tied into their irrigation systems, or even some have weather stations tied into their data tracking worksheets, where readings are automatically recorded for various information needed, such as disease tracking and growth management, which helps them decide on timing their fertilizer applications, among other things.  I'm just a simple folk, (mostly too old to figure out this new fangled stuff, and short of budget), but the information we record is important to all of us in the industry.

Other points of data collection include; a monthly calendar, where I record all activities on the golf course. Be it cultural practices, fertilizer and pesticide applications, rain, irrigation, and even golfer information, such as if we were open for play or allowed carts, I find all this information useful at one time or another.  Some of this information is duplicated in my fertilizer/pesticide application log, or in my weather log.  I also have some other data collecting sheets for moisture readings, but that I will share at a more appropriate time.

        

     Here is the monthly calendar example, even color coded.  It helps me identify practices or needed data quicker.  To the left are the past 6 years of data collection.  I will talk about how being able to reach back that far is helpful in my next post.

To the right is my daily weather log.  I record the time I check the weather station, (usually after our first morning jobs), what the current temperature is, the lows from the morning, and the highs from yesterday, (I have my 24 hours resetting about 8:30 - 9:00 AM, compared to the National Weather Service resetting at midnight). Any rain, soil temperature at the time, wind, humidity, ET, and some comments.  I will at certain times of the year record afternoon soil and humidity readings.  I will also do a monthly temperature average and total rain fall for the month.  That information comes in handy when analyzing the month and I use it in my monthly reports.

The last data collection post I will share, has to do with our fertilizer and pesticide applications.  I have these going back to 2009 in the format I am sharing in this post, but I can trace applications all the way back to 2005, most of 2004 applications were lost in our shop fire.  After a visit by our state Pesticide Bureau, I changed to this format.  It wasn't really necessary due to the fact we didn't use restricted use pesticides at the time, but it has allowed me to go back and visit programs to make improvements.  The middle sheet is a list of all applications made to a certain location that season, such as greens.  The right sheet is an application sheet that list each product, rate, amount, weather conditions, application vehicle or mode, who the applicator was, lot numbers of the products, and any other issues or conditions that might have affected the application.  I know there are online formats which I will play with this season, but I will continue this format as well, since it is what our state requires.  

                

This bulk of data I can use to review and improve my programs, and to figure out why we had success and/or failures. In future posts I will discuss an issue, the program, the data, and what changes we might make.  I hope to hear what other data might be important for me to track.

Thanks for reading!

Mel

The Expected Winter Question

Yes it's that time of year for most golf course superintendents, even those in Florida, I remember when I was growing up and working in Florida we were occasionally asked what we did in the winter.

Well during a training session that was put on by my employer a week ago, we had to say who we were, what department we worked for, what our job title was, and then comment on a question.  After I gave my answers, and being the only golf course superintendent in the room, (and one of the few who regularly work outdoors) I heard the question from the instructor, "So what do you do in the winter"?  I certainly didn't answer keeping up with my blog, which of course I haven't.  So after that training, I thought, what a great way to get myself back on track, and talk about some of the things we are doing this winter.

What follows is what we have been doing this winter.  While we have had our share of mild days all the way through most of December, we really didn't do much in the way of projects, since we were continuing with setting up the course for play, and still doing some watering due to the dry November and December weather.  We didn't drain our irrigation system until right before Christmas, when the weather took a downward spiral into some brutally cold days and nights.

We did get all of our landscape beds cleaned out and mulched.  But when that cold weather hit, most of our projects moved inside.

The first project we tackled was repairing our small equipment trailer.  Repair might not be accurate, more like rebuild.  The wood on it had rotted out and was just falling apart.  The old wood was removed, the frame was sanded and then repainted.  New  wood decking was added, along with new sides were installed.  The wood was all stained to provide protection from the elements.



Our next project consisted of repairing and repainting our ballwashers and garbage cans.  Certainly a project I have shown before.  This would be this year's version.

The ballwashers were cleaned out, sanded down, and then repainted.  The parts were checked and worn or defective parts replaced.  Then the ballwashers were reassembled, checked to make sure they worked properly, then stored to await the spring.



Garbage cans were cleaned, repaired as needed, painted, then put back out for golfers to use.




Another project we worked on was fixing and making a more user friendly bed on our old golf carts we use to get around the golf course, mainly for small jobs and transportation.

These are some of the projects we have completed.  We are still working on some more and hoping for some warmer weather, as our to do list includes many items out on the course as well.

As the winter continues and we finish up some more of our projects, I will share those too.

Many thanks for reading!

Mel

October Monthly Report

This post I would like to share a monthly report I send to my supervisor who compiles reports for our Park Board's monthly meeting.  While I have been getting positive feedback, I always wonder, could I improve my reports?  Is there something I'm leaving out?  I do find some of the research such as weather, rounds, irrigation use, comes in handy when comparing with previous years, I get a better understanding of how the month went.  Would love to hear some feedback from you my readers.

                                                 Horton Smith Golf Course

Monthly Report

October 2017

Activities:  This October we hosted 2,000 rounds of golf.  We hosted the last of the Jr. PGA League matches, and 2 outings.  Numbers were a little lower than last October, but weather was average this year, where in 2016 temperatures averaged 6-7 degrees above average with only a couple of minor frost delays.  We have already had three 2-hour delays this year, and have had 3 days where the temperature hasn’t got out of the 40’s.        

 

Weather:  This month we saw average temperatures.  Our average highs were 70.7 degrees, which is 1.7 degrees above the average of 69 degrees in October.  Our monthly average lows finished at 48 degrees which is 1 degrees above the normal average low of 47 degrees.  Precipitation was below average for this month, we had a total of 2.59” of rain for the month, 1 inch below average.  Rains were evenly spaced. 

Maintenance Practices: While we did continue to set up the course for daily play, this month we noticed a big decrease in our mowing practices.  Greens still were mowed or rolled daily.  As the month cooled off, we went out to mow less and less, especially the warm season grass.

Cultural, Fertilizer and Pesticide Practices: We did verticut and topdress early in the month, but due to cooling temperatures, we did not topdress later in the month, since topdressing is based on growth of greens.  We did get in two more Primo applications and one fungicide application on greens.  We also put a pre-emergent herbicide application on tees.  We sliced and seeded the upper range tee again along with the approaches on 1, 3, 7, and 9.  We seeded collars with bentgrass. 

Equipment:  Equipment has been running well, but we still need work on our large area rough mower.  Luckily this month, this rough mower became a back-up as we received our new large area rough mower, a Jacobsen HR600.  After having it out for a couple of weeks, we felt we could lower the height of cut from 3” it was set to, down to 2.5”, with still good results.  We have also noticed that the new mower is burning ½ gallon less fuel per hour.  The mower averages about 700 hours per season, so we will save 350 gallons of fuel per season, and it also has an extended service interval compared to the old mower.  The new mower allows for a longer service interval, we will service the new mower every 200 hours compared to 100 hours on the old mower. 

        

   
          

G6-008 as it arrived at our shop.          G6-008 out mowing.

Irrigation:  We did use 1,146,645 gallons of water this month.  This was almost identical to what we used in 2016, (1,464,746 gallons).  We ran 7 different green cycles, 3 tee cycles, and 3 fairway cycles.  We had to replace one coil on a head.  We had to replace one case that the head was weeping. We had to repair a plug in a controller.  And the main project was to replace the old electro-mechanical clock in # 10 green control box with an updated retro kit.  The new kit will allow us to water multiple areas which we couldn’t do before.  We can run a couple of # 10 green heads, while also running some heads on # 11 tee.  The old electro-mechanical SBM clocks are not that reliable, although they will usually work off the computer ok.  But if we lose that connection, the timers don’t always work, the station timers could be off up to maybe 5 minutes or more per station, the hour clocks might not work and start irrigation cycles on time, or the day dials might not switch over to the next day.  We have about half of the old electro-mechanical clocks that cannot run by themselves if we were to lose communications with the computer.  Even when those run ok, we run into issues with the bottom station control panel with loose plugs.  (the clock we did replace is working well and will become a back-up to other old clocks until we get them all replaced with the newer Par+ clocks).    

                 

The picture on the left shows the old wire set up.  The picture on the right is the clock.  It can only turn on one station at a time.  The newer clocks can run multiple stations and the newer electronics are more reliable.

                            
                                    

     

Other Projects:

We did the following projects:   

·         Removed a landscape bed on 12/13 and planted grass seed.  Many balls from 12 tee would find their way into this bed.

·         Installed a new bench on # 18/4 tee.

·         Repaired the wood on other benches.

·         Fixed 8 cart path where roots from a pine tree had heaved the asphalt.

·         Fixed the equipment wash rack drain, and cleaned up the area around the wash rack.

·         Mowed down the natural areas.

·         Winterized the irrigation pump house.

·         Winterized some of the ball washers, brought the rest inside.

·         Wrapped the pipes on the outdoor restrooms to help protect them from the cold temperature, without having to close them down too early in the season.

·         Install new lids for irrigation heads with yardage engraved on them.  The heads needed lids anyway, and these were cheaper then OEM heads.   

           

            

 

The Path on # 8 where the pine tree roots had damaged the path.  We removed the roots and asphalt, and backfilled with dirty base rock.  We will let cart and equipment traffic pack it solid over the winter and will then come back in and put a layer of concrete over the patch. 

Wash rack improvements.  It will allow wash water to drain away, yet we can lift the grates up and scoop up excess grass clippings. 

       

Well that was our October report.  Some of the projects mentioned I want to expand more on in future posts.

Hope I can get some tips to make it better.

Thanks for reading.

Mel