[Lawrence Largent]

My club installed the new strain of grass 3 years ago this Nov. I'm interested to see if anyone else here on the board has had any expeirence with this type of grass. For the supers out there if they have dealt with it what are you doing to get the best results. Last year we kept our greens very firm and at a very nice fun pace and about this time we had alot of difficulty with weather very hot with frequent down pours. This year out super took the other road watered down and slower speed with alot more grass on the greens. Same result this year maybe worse. I'm very interested to hear any comments regarding this subject.

Thanks
Lawrence

[JR Potts]

I believe this is the strain that Medinah put in after the 1999 PGA.  The results have been awesome in my opinion.  It has been very heat tolerant and had held up very well.

Butler may have put it in too.  (It may just be A1).  I can tell you that the grass there has been awesome as well.

[Chris Cupit]

Lawrence,

At my super's reccomendation we just re-did our greens with a 50/50 blend of A-1 and A-4.  Both grasses have excellent texture and color.  While some people prefer to have one strand of grass, our feeling was that this blend would naturally allow the "stronger"of the two grasses in a given micro-climate that best chance to dominate and thrive.

In GA. the A-4 has been praised for its resistance to Pythium blight (sp.?) The A-1 seems to not only suceed at low cutting heights, it seems to prefer low cutting heights.  .150 was the "magic" height for our new greens to really knit together during grow in.  I would imagine some people will maintain .130 and maybe even lower heights for regular play.

Our only concern was that because our greens have significant undualtion, how could we be able to keep the mowing height relatively high and not hurt the A-1's desire to be cut lower.

[Dan Herrmann]

We've found that A1-A4 needs some serious de-thatching yearly.  We're using a Graden, which works well.

The putting surface is wonderful.

[TEPaul]

"Our only concern was that because our greens have significant undualtion, how could we be able to keep the mowing height relatively high and not hurt the A-1's desire to be cut lower."

Chris:

That was our concern too when we went to A4 four years ago. We thought perhaps the grass had to be cut too short for our slopes and contours and that we may be taking something of a risk but that turned out not to be the case even if we cut them lower than you do---sometimes down to .110.

We use a regular light verticutting program which seems to work well and the thing we really like about A4 is it seems to love dryness.

[Tom_Doak]

I am still not a big fan of A-4 for general use.  It's the Ferrari of grasses (NOTE TO TURF COMPANIES:  do not quote me in part on this topic) but if you give a Ferrari to most drivers you can expect one of two things:

a)  a fiery crash due to excessive speed, or
b)  very expensive garage bills.

It doesn't have to be that way, I've seen A-1 and A-4 used in Australia on a low fertility program with very impressive results, but most of the superintendents in Australia can handle fast cars, too.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

I don't think I've heard any negative feedback on the "A" strains around here and a lot of courses seem to have gone to it---except for one cryptic remark from one of the best supers on one of the best courses around here who said:

"After about four years the honeymoon is over."

I've got to call him and ask him exactly what he meant by that, particularly after looking at his greens this fall they seemed to be about the best I've seen anywhere.

[Lawrence Largent]

Mr. Doak,

With your comments are u saying that there is a high cost of maintaining the grass?




To everyone else I'm gathering so far that the grass needs to be maintained at a resonable speed. Also the grass needs to be dethatched regularly.


Lawrence

[TEPaul]

Lawrence:

It seems like regular light aeriating and verticutting does the trick with this new grass. It is unusually dense---a lot of blades per square inch compared to what most of us are used to with bent.

[Lawrence Largent]

Late summer we were having some problems with the greens  being stressed. We tried a very small hole punch with a light top dress of sand and the greens responded well. I've recommended that we do this throughout the summer maybe once every 6 weeks.


Lawrence

[Tom_Doak]

Lawrence:

You can spend a lot of money maintaining any strain of bentgrass on greens if you want to, so I'm not sure that A-4 is any more expensive.  But it does absolutely commit you to verticutting and topdressing regimens, so if the maintenance budget ever becomes an issue, you can't cut back on the greens.

It's more the speed of the greens which worries me.  If you don't want your greens at 9.5 or 10 daily, or if you've built contour into your greens and you don't trust the green chairman or superintendent to keep the speed to a reasonable level, A-4 isn't the right grass.  And personally, I still believe what the old guard of superintendents told me twenty years ago -- that if you try to keep high green speeds for weeks and months and years on end, the grass will be weakened to the point that a tough spell will cause serious damage.

I heard lots of complaints about ball marks on greens when the A-4 first came out, on my own courses as well as others.  Has anyone figured out why that was, or how to control it?  Haven't heard too much about it lately.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Lawerence,
  TEPaul is right when he's talking about shoots per sqare foot-A1 is about 65% denser than the old penncross, thus the need to verticut and topdress more.  
  Because of the more aggressive nature of this grass and it's need to be(and ablility to be) mowed a little lower, I have a feeling that Mr. Doak isnt a fan because he likes to desing greens with ALOT of contour, which allows him to use fescues and have slower speeds. I'd have to guess that he'd have to soften his greens if the client wanted A1. If memory serves me right, Friar's Head is a mix of A1/A4, but it was noted from the start that the greens would not be lightning fast because of the contours.
  The ball marking is still a bit of an issue, though no grass is perfect. It does have better heat tolerance along with Crenshaw and L-93. (Which has the high shoot density) I guess that's why Oregon Seed is still promoting pencross as "the old rugged cross...."


Tony Nysse
Sr. Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[Craig Sweet]

I love Penncross....I'd take it any day over the A's....some of it is appearance...Penn is a nice green and the A's tend to be brown....Penn feels soft under foot and the A's feel crunchy...Penncross has a good long history and the A's have not been around long enough...who knows how a 25 year old A 1 green is going to play???

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

  I have experimented with Alpha and T-1 bentgrasses. I really like what I have seen from these two varieties on sand based and soil conditions. Great color on very low fetility, better disease resistance than grasses growing side by side and quick establishment. I do not know if either of these grasses have been used extensively yet.

   I know most new projects are going for the mono type stand of grasses but I really like the idea of using several varieties and letting them settle out over time. Looks great on an older course renovation or a newer course with a older feel.

[RDecker]

Tom D,
I think part of what you might be seeing with the ballmark issue is that the G series and certainly the A series of bents were specifically "engineered" to have an upright growth habit instead of the more lateral growth of a penncross for example.  With this in mind the lateral stability, knitting effect of the A's may not give it as much resistance the the "glancing blow" of a ballmark.  I'm not sure but call it an educated guess.

[Chris Cupit]

Tom P,

Thanks for the info.  We do a light "dusting" every week and have a great super who I feel confident will do a terrific job with them.

I think .130 is about as low as we will want to go. With our slopes we are a little concerned even at that height.  

[Tim Copeland]

If you can wade thru it....this is a study that Clemson guys did while I was at Walker Course

The test green was just beside our maintenance facility and it was interesting to watch it unfold.

Remember...these are test results....no spikes walking all over them.  They did another test for that.

http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/turfornamental/tmi/breedman/Bent2txt.htm

[LBaker]

Fact or fiction:
They are not shade tolerant.  Not many bent species are, but the A's are no good without full sun.  

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

Lindsey,

I think shade is an issue. The bents are shade tolerant in that the grow but I believe the shade levels the playing field long term and Poa can encroach and compete. Full sun is always better. Just think of any course you worked on. The best green has full sun and air movment, the worst had at least some shade and less air.

As far as recovery of the A's and G's I think its a matter of feeding the grass enough. Most A and G growers are not in a hurry to over feed them becasue they are already worried about the tight canopy and potential for thatch. Who wants to schedule extra cultural practices? The USGA is definately recommending higher fertility rates now compared too a few years ago. "Grow the grass".  We do have much better tools for cultural managment today than 10 - 15 years ago.

[Dan Herrmann]

Whoever mentioned ball marks was right on the money.  Actually, the Graden with a lot of sand really helped, IMHO (I'm just a member - not an expert).  Our super did the verti-cutting in March and Octber this year (in SE Penn.).  The October healed much, much faster.  From now on, October will be the rule.

Eventually, we will be using the Graden on the approaches.  But we need to be careful because the ground can be pretty rocky around here (there's a reason our next door neighbor is called Stonewall )

And Sean is (as usual) right about the shade.  Our course doesn't have many trees, but whatever we had causing shade needed to come down for the grasses to thrive.

I'm pretty sure AGNC uses A-1/A-4.  And you could see the verti-cut marks in last years Masters on the high def telecast.

[Craig Sweet]

Ah yes...increase fertility and increase growth regulators....what's wrong with this picture?

[Dan Herrmann]

Craig - absolutely correct!

I love putting on the A1/A4 blend at our course.  We actually need to make sure it doesn't get TOO fast.  A double-cut and rolled surface can make some holes pretty goofy.

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

In the season of giving Thanks - I am very Thankfull for Plant Growth Regulators (PGR). So yes, fertilize and grow the grass but heavily regulate it at the same time. PGR are probably one of the best things to happen to golf maintenance in the last 15 years.

Dan the Graden in October healed quicker due to the higher soil temperatures as compared to spring. This machine is a great tool. Your course is coming along just great and I always enjoy it.

[Matt MacIver]

A1 was installed on our 18 new greens last year.  They generally look and play great.  We mowed them at .115, but in July we started getting some brown patches and the sup'r raised the height to .130 for the rest of the summer.  Three weeks are after aeration in early September, they were back to perfect.  

The sup'r said for next year he will add one small tine verdicut in July and probably raise the height a month earlier.  We also are adding fans to three greens to improve circulation.  

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