Thought I’d add a bit of input about our methods in the UK. Looks like we are lucky compared to you Guys.
We are in the south west of the UK and enjoy a temperate climate with temperatures between –5 and 30 degrees centregrade. Our greens are a mix of bent and poa with a little fescue in there.
By keeping them lean we have found we really get no risk from destructive fungal attacks. I’m thinking of fusarium mainly here but we are lucky in that we get little of anything else. We get some anthracnose but I treat that as an ally in that it takes out some of the poa. We also found that by cutting right back on the N input and therefore drastically improving the cell wall strength, we not only get less disease infection but also get additional big benefits such as vastly improved wear tolerance, drought tolerance, no triplex ring to worry about and no frost damage which means the golfers can play on the main greens all year.
As for such low levels of N input, we just ease right up and don’t feed and then manage the consequences. It’s just a case of having the discipline to do it. This will mean less verticutting (we want to keep the grass we have), little disruptive aeration as there is very little recovery from wear (we do a big core tine in March and top dress heavily to get the levels back and vertidrain every two months but with pencil tines), plenty of top dressing and we keep the HOC high, about 5.0mm at the moment. Despite us cutting high, we still get a good pace for the members because there is comparatively little grass on them.
We will feed a bit more later on in the year but all in all keep them constantly hungry. I think we are getting quite good at this but there are some places that are in a different league. Some of those links courses like TOC have got it to the stage where there is zero thatch and no ball marks, even in the winter. Kieran Daly at Gogmagog GC has gone from pure poa to complete fescue domination in just 3 years through a combo of no feeding at all, a total acceptance of die back, massive overseeding and a terrific sales job on the committee. In fact they ended up being more committed to the scheme than Kieran was.