Sustainable & Fescue Greens?

[Randy Thompson]

The market that seems to be growing in South America is associated with second home markets and therefore sustainable in relations to economics becomes a more and more important factor considering most of these courses will never see more than five thousand rounds per year. We seem to be gradually taking more and more seriously, the entire sustainable issues on all fronts to new heights with each project. My question is considering fescue greens, as the next possible step in cool season enviroments. I have never played a fescue green, so my questions are this:
1. How big of a decrease in putting quality will there be. If bent is a ten..what would you rank fescue..can you reach an eight for example?
2. Will there be a signifcant cost savings in the overall maintenance of the fescue compared to bent?
3. What is the lowest height of cut you can obtain on a good fescue green?
4. I know they will be slower but how about the trueness, con you get them true or does the ball make weird movements when it starts to diminish in velocity?
Thanks for shedding any light!

[Anders Rytter]

Fescue greens are very common in Denmark due to regulation.

Here's a repport, think it's from 2004 but will see if i  can find something more recent.

http://www.surrey-bigga.co.uk/downloads/PromFescueDenmark.pdf

[Anders Rytter]

Here is one more, from my home club, i know these greens quite well (Playing wise) if you have any questions.

http://www.finegolf.co.uk/what-is-fine-golf/eu-to-ban-pesticides/

[Adrian_Stiff]

Randy in the UK the problems we have with fescue is keeping it pure, basically its impossible and thats probably true anywhere. Fescue is very different culturally than most other grasses, it does not like water or food and it likes thin impoverish soil. In a pure stand its a beautiful grass but unlike bentgrass or even rye the chewings variety does not integrate very well with Poa, and most other grasses are far more competitive. With limited play you can keep it but you can keep it but you will lose it  if you cut under 6mm so many will see that as a no. 6mm golf greens are ok for the highlands in Scotland or where you might cut once ever 4 or 5 days. So I would say Fescue greens could have a place in low budget situations, I dont think you will have success with volume play or in situations where somebody knows and cares about a stimpmeter although you can still get pacey putts when mown.

[Tom_Doak]

Randy:

I should really get one of the superintendents who manages fescue greens to answer your questions, but neither Ken Nice at Bandon Dunes nor Dave Hensley at Ballyneal nor Phil Hill at Barnbougle posts here much.  So, I'll provide some basic answers for now, and can give your their emails if you want better details.

1.  Fescue turf is a completely different regime than bentgrass, so it's a bit hard to compare the two.  Putting quality can be excellent ... just as good as bentgrass in the right conditions, but conditions and especially green speeds are harder to maintain consistently throughout the year.  On the other hand, if you only want green speeds of 9, fescue can be very good although it takes a couple of years to get there.

2.  Costs depend on what you are aiming for and how you're trying to get there.  You can definitely back off the fertilizer and chemicals and watering compared to bentgrass.  You can even back off everyday mowing, if you aren't trying to hit higher green speeds everyday.  You still have to topdress the greens frequently.  The greens at Old Macdonald are still 100% fescue and in spite of what Adrian says above, they are in very good shape.

3.  Cutting heights aren't really comparable to bentgrass numbers.  Fescue grows much more upright than bentgrass.  I am not sure if Adrian's 6 mm limit is correct, though.

4.  Because the fescue grows more upright, there is really no grain at all in fescue greens.  You'll get a perfectly true roll unless and until poa annua starts to take over the sward.  The latter is really the key to fescue greens ... can you keep the poa annua out of them?  [Of course the same is true for bentgrass ... many of the bentgrass greens on famous American courses are dominated by poa annua.]

Let me know if you want contact info for the superintendents.

[Jon Wiggett]

Randy,

Tom has it spot on with most of his post. Fescue will give you a low cost, low input and high quality golfing sward. It has the quality of the putt losing its speed more evenly than bent which tends to stop more abruptly unless shaved. It does not have the same colour as bent but this is cosmetic.

As to Adrian's post. Adrian is normally well informed but in this post he seems to be somewhat wide of the mark. Fescue is happy at 5mm and will often be fine with 4.5mm. If aeration is intensive enough then wear should not be a problem when compared to other cool season grass types. As for stimp meters I have had pure fescue greens at over 3.5m (about 11ft) when at 7mm

Jon

[Pete Balzer]

Here's excerpts from a newsletter from the Prairie Club a few yrs back-

In the fairways at The Prairie Club, we are using a group of fescues: Chewings Fescue, Sheep Fescue, Hard Fescue, Fine Fescue along with a few others. Fescue grass is mainly found on the coasts of the United States and Britain - but we believe gets to the roots of how the game should be played. If it is good enough for St. Andrews, it will work out just fine for The Prairie Club. In addition, fescue, because of its low need for water, is now recognized as a "green" choice in the golf community. Finally, we added an old strain of Bent Grass to the fairways to help with traffic tolerance and the harsh winters of the Nebraska prairie.

As for the greens, we are using a blend of T-1 bentgrass and another bentgrass. This is the newest generation of creeping bentgrass that is head and shoulders above previous strains. The grass has all of the good qualities (i.e. tenacious ground cover, rich green color, poa annua resistant) in addition to being very low maintenance. This week, the mower was lowered to .130 inches on the greens, and we should be down to .125 in another week. "Our greens are running a 10 on the stimpmeter now, and we're nine months away from opening day," said Ross Buckendahl, The Prairie Club's Golf Course Superintendent. "This grass is incredible. It's like it's on steroids, but there are no steroids".

[Adrian_Stiff]

Jon - Chewings Fescue is at its happiest much higher than 6mm. You can mow inside 6mm but you are pushing the plant outside of its comfort zone and its best to go lower than a quarter of inch only for short periods. In old times you saw more fescue retained, I dont see it much now on the UK courses save that of high spots or edges away from the direct line of play, where you will still find chewings fescue on the edges/collars of greens where the grass is being maintained at say 12mm, that is the real comfort zone for chewings. Its a beautiful plant but I have 100% confidence in that it prefers high heights. Its the prolonged period of lower cutting that troubles it, yes you will get away with 5mm for some time, within your post you made reference to 7mm. I suspect we are both not so far away from correct fescue management, I am definetly 'not wide of the mark though'.
Somewhere like Bandon is ideal for fescue where you are not heavily plagued by poa annua ingress and have a budget to hand weed out. As long as you can hand weed the poa out you are okay with bent or fescue, but there may come a spring where it might be a bridge too far. Big greens and the ability to rest areas both for golfing and walk offs is a key factor also. You wont keep fescue with 40,000 rounds either but you might be okay up to 18-20.
We have a new course with strong fescue content and are mowing not less than 5.5mm, the members are not understanding though. My greenkeeping days are 25 years away now and strains of creeping red fescue may have been improved but chewings, hard or sheeps fescue wont have altered from the ABCs of a hundred years ago.
If you could keep chewings at not less than 7 or 8mm it would be better but obviously not practical, I'd like to see a pure stand after 5 years at 4.5mm, if there is a way it is the ultimate winner, but its slow to recover from wear and in 99% of UK situations annual meadow grass is the first back in, you can see that in pitchmark damage.

[Sean_A]

I seem to recall that at my club with mainly bent & fescue greens the goal for everyday play is 5mm in summer and higher heights in winter.  I am not sure the goal is always met though and I suspect the heights may be slightly higher.  The club rolls the greens much more to achieve the desired speed rather than relying on short cuts.  The greens are not nearly as quick as they used to be when poa was rife, but they are far firmer all year and all the better for it. 

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

The problem with fescue and bent growing together is that each grass is culturally at a different spectrum. Bent grass is hungry likes water and needs lots of attention, fescue requires minimal feeding, does well under drought and you can leave it alone. Bent grass can be mown to less than 3mm though that is also pushing it beyond comfort and in all honesty no grass is best sub 4.5.

A lot of seed mixtures are Bent and Fescue and the fescue is just a nurse crop, the bent dominates in time, in most cases with a little residual fescue in the non golfing areas.

Its been a UK problem for the last 60-70 years as modern golfing is not kind to fescue.

[Randy Thompson]

Some great stuff here, thanks to all
Anders great report and article- very helpful thanks!
Adrian and Jon,
Your probably both right, different grasses act different in different locations. I had a discussion with Anthony on Common bermuda and tiff and whcih one is more aggressive. In Florida he says the common is more agressive, which it probably is, but in Argentina and Chile, we have native common and the tiff is more aggressive, I have seen the tiff move against the common all over. Went back and talked to several superintendents and all agree with me, without a doubt the tiff is more agressive. Anthony said send me some of those magical sprigs. They wern´t magical, they were prodcued in Georgia just like his sprigs but I let it go, this site is about having positive interchange of idea, not about being right all the time and few things in turfgrass management are balck and white. The minute you think that...well you know! Jon, your testing this with 7mm fescue greens rolling 11. Is there a catch, were they iced over, dormant or recently rolled with a highways steam roller. Its hard to imagine any live grass at 7mm stemping 11. But if you say so, I will imagine it!
Gotta run now, but will make some additional comments tonight. Thanks

[Randy Thompson]

So from the input I have gotten it seems the way to go. I don´t think they will ever get to more than five thousand rounds and certianly not more then fifteen. The other drawback seems to be the problem with infestation of Poa which if it does happen could happen with bent surfaces also. I am fairly confident it won´t be a problem. I walked about one hundred acres and never saw a native plant of poa. The closest golf course is outside a sixty mile radius. The closest home lawn is outside a twenty mile radius. Obviously there are no guarantees but even if, with the longer root system of the fescue and it´s abilty to return from drought stress and the shallow root system of Poa and the fact that it dies without water, wouldn´t it possible to shut off the irrigation for a week to ten days, burn the poa out and then bring back the stressed fescue? From the literature that Anders provided, it seems it is important to overseed once or twice a year to maintain a dense stand, thus making it more difficult for the poa to enter. I wonder how many clubs acutally do that? I have been in third world countries for a while but most clubs I remeber seem to adapt a certain common philosphy and that is, If it ain´t broke, than don´t fix it. What I am trying to say is when the greens are perfect and Poa free, what is the percentage of clubs, that verticutt or aerify twice a year and overseed? That to e would be important and not very costly.
Conclusions,
Postive: less water, less pesticides, less disease, true roll, greens speeds of 9 at 5 mm, less cutting, same topdressing requirements as Bent, less verticutting, no grooming for its up right growth pattern, better shade tolenrance and little need for 600,000 US$ USGA greens. Negative: 1. Overseeding cost of once a year or twice a year to maintain dense turf, which you might not need if play is very limited as will be the case in my situation. 2.They will be difficult to compete in the fastest greens in the world contest. Humm, looks to me like the positives out weigh the negatives.
Any thoughts on using the same soil as the greens were built on for topdressing VS sand?

Tom,
It would be great if you could send me one the three´s email to further discuss varieties and mixes, thanks!

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Try asking the greenkeepers Chris Haspell of Castle Stuart or Simon Freeman of Machrie.
Both have fescue greens that are immaculate.

My experience with fescue greens, tees and fairways in Switzerland have been very successful.
On a course I designed in 2001 at Leuk G.C. we full fescued wall-to-wall.
After an initial slow grow-in, the course still has an excellent fescue cover.
Greens are terrific and kept at 5mm – biggest advantages are savings on Fertiliser, Water and Desease Control. Disadvantages are the Stimpmeter rarely goes higher than 10-11 feet but in summer during drought periods the speed can increase.

However the strongly modelled greens can’t take a close cut anyway.
Rolling can also help but is rarely carried out.

Fairways are Poa free however other weeds have to be dealt with now and then.

We’ve only had to overseed the fairways once when the grass thinned out after a particularly long winter due to compaction.
Greens are only occasionly overseeded

Practically all our greens in the Alps are seeded with a fescue/agrostis mix, and those greenkeepers I’ve managed to encourage to hold back on the Fertiliser and Water and keep the cut at 5mm, have an excellent Fescue content.

I’ve even seeded fescue fairways in the Canary Islands, which is close to a North African Climate, as a starter grass during the “winter” months, however it was overseeded with Paspalum so I never found out how it behaved during the hotter summer months.

If you want some good agronomical advice, get in touch with the STRI in the UK, who oversee many of the Links courses in the UK and their Fescue grasses.

Generally you need to have well draining soils, a resonably dry climate and a fescue dedicated greekeeper.

[Steve Okula]

Generally you need to have well draining soils, a resonably dry climate and a fescue dedicated greekeeper.

For pure fescue greens, wouldn't you also need light traffic and a salt-free environment? Is salt why they put Paspalum over your fescue in Fuertaventura?

I've never managed pure fescue greens, but I have seen diseases (Sclerotinia and Fusarium) attack fescue in fairways just as they do bents or Poa.

Why would 10-11 foot Stimp rolls be a disadvantage? How many golf courses are normally faster than that on a day-to-day basis?

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Steve,

Yes indeed the fairways in Fuerteventura were always planned to be seeded with Paspalum as recycled waste water would eventually be used for irrigation.
However we decided in a first Phase of 6-Holes to initially seed with Fescue in November to claim some of the playing season of the following spring - Paspalum seed doesn’t start to germinate until an average temperature of about 20C and prefers 30C. So Fescue was seeded as an interim measure with pure water irrigation.

Fescue green surfaces tend to be dryer, less thatch and less lush than agrostis greens, so they are less susceptible to diseases.
As I mentioned on one of my courses, Bunavista G.C., where the greens still have a mainly fescue content, the greenkeeper only had to spray once in the first season and that was a preventive measure against snow mould before the winter began.
However your right in your observation, Fescue is not immune to diseases, but disease is usually instigated by very damp conditions,over fertilising or thatched surfaces. Check out the link in the first Thread and go to page 12 to read the comment on disease types and their remedies.

The Denmark experience, particularly the hard pioneering work of the UK Greenkeepers Ian Tomlinson and Chris Haspell, has been a success and the Fescue Promotion Policy to counteract the restrictions on fertilising and pesticide applications has now been adopted by 50% of the 150 golf clubs in Denmark.

A futuristic outlook to the past is paying dividends and appears to provide win-win solutions for everyone

The slower Stimpmeter values are a disadvantage in the eyes of the golfers that are used to playing Agrostis Stimpmeter 11-13 feet Greens, however as you imply – is it really a disadvantage?

[Brett Hochstein]

If you are outside of the UK or similar maritime climate, limited play is probably the key.  I love fescue greens even if I've usually putted better on bentgrass greens.  I think it's the color tone variation that has thrown me off more than the roll.  It can be a great surface, especially in a well established environment where you can get the sward good and sparse with a nice yellowy base.  Sometimes areas of fairways can roll faster than bentgrass greens.  I remember half seriously asking the Course Manager at Kingsbarns, Innes Knight, what the fairways were rolling at before playing a round there in late October 2009.  He replied stonefaced, "11."  And after my first drive, I didn't doubt him. 

With regards to Poa annua, it's all about creating the environment and having the natural climate for fescue to have the competitive advantage.  This means lean water from man and/or nature, having sandy free draining soil with low nutrient holding capacity, and not having too high of temperatures.  These items also call for less foot traffic though too.  I guess if you are hellbent on it and still expect a moderate to good amount of play, just make the greens bigger.  Everyone wins in that case anyway.

[Ben Sims]

Am I wrong in assuming that the tree largest components to sustainble fescue greens are

1) Climate (heat being the primary enemy moreso than other grasses)
2) Height of cut (a good fescue surface is probably mowed at double the length of a good bent or poa surface)
3) Traffic

Ideal conditions probably include an environment with a lot of temps in the 50-65F range, moderate rainfall, 0.20-.25 on the cut, and moderate traffic.

[Tom_Doak]

Am I wrong in assuming that the tree largest components to sustainble fescue greens are

1) Climate (heat being the primary enemy moreso than other grasses)
2) Height of cut (a good fescue surface is probably mowed at double the length of a good bent or poa surface)
3) Traffic

Ideal conditions probably include an environment with a lot of temps in the 50-65F range, moderate rainfall, 0.20-.25 on the cut, and moderate traffic.

Re: climate, as Brett mentions, you need it to be either cool or relatively dry.  If you get a lot of wet weather, it's harder to keep the poa annua from invading.

Soils are also important.  I've never seen really good fescue on anything other than free-draining sand.  Presumably, it would do all right on a USGA green, but I am a little bit concerned about how it will do on the loamy native soils Randy cites.  It will probably be fine as long as there isn't anyone there to over-manage it!

[Randy Thompson]

Am I wrong in assuming that the tree largest components to sustainble fescue greens are

1) Climate (heat being the primary enemy moreso than other grasses)
2) Height of cut (a good fescue surface is probably mowed at double the length of a good bent or poa surface)
3) Traffic

Ideal conditions probably include an environment with a lot of temps in the 50-65F range, moderate rainfall, 0.20-.25 on the cut, and moderate traffic.

Re: climate, as Brett mentions, you need it to be either cool or relatively dry.  If you get a lot of wet weather, it's harder to keep the poa annua from invading.

Soils are also important.  I've never seen really good fescue on anything other than free-draining sand.  Presumably, it would do all right on a USGA green, but I am a little bit concerned about how it will do on the loamy native soils Randy cites.  It will probably be fine as long as there isn't anyone there to over-manage it!

It definetly deosn´t like clay but seems to be doing well on loam on a project that we have but it has not opened yet. Good surface drainage will be important to not let the big rains enter the soil. If it doesn´t hold up so well, we can always overseed with some perrenial rye. Thanks for the input

[Randy Thompson]

Shit-Maybe I should plan on mixing the loam with some sand to increase the internal drainage. Better to put it in the buget now and do some nurseries trials between now and then to evaluate.

[Ben Sims]

Shit-Maybe I should plan on mixing the loam with some sand to increase the internal drainage. Better to put it in the buget now and do some nurseries trials between now and then to evaluate.

Randy,

I'll get into some of my edaphology stuff about this technique.  I've heard that pushup and cap may be more advantageous on a loamy soil than trying to amend the loam.  Might tighten it up a bit. 

Nuzzo and Mahaffey have lots of experience with the viability of pushup and cap with a graduated sand content the further you get from the greens. 

[Randy Thompson]

Much appreciated!

[Brett Hochstein]

Shit-Maybe I should plan on mixing the loam with some sand to increase the internal drainage. Better to put it in the buget now and do some nurseries trials between now and then to evaluate.

Randy,

I'll get into some of my edaphology stuff about this technique.  I've heard that pushup and cap may be more advantageous on a loamy soil than trying to amend the loam.  Might tighten it up a bit. 

Nuzzo and Mahaffey have lots of experience with the viability of pushup and cap with a graduated sand content the further you get from the greens. 

Right. Particle uniformity is more important than anything.  Adding sand can sand can sometimes make things worse by filling voids.  In those cases you just need a ton of sand, so much so that you achieve uniformity.

[Neil Noble]

Randy,

If traffic is really going to be less than 15K rounds loam soils would be fine but "Loam" is a big category I suggest you stick with a sandy loam as even with low rounds generally they will be mowed daily and that's where a lot of the compaction comes from.

With native soil you should really test the organic content because if it is above 3% the soil will naturally be releasing a significant amount of Nitrogen to the plants so it is very easy to over-manage, and with a 4%+ O.M. you might need nearly no fertilization.

Deep infrequent irrigation is necessary for maintaining the natural advantage fescue has over other would-be contaminant grasses.  Even the best superintendents don't always realize what this means so I would suggest oversaturating the greens and then drying the greens to the wilting point during grow-in.  This isn't as scary or counter productive as it sounds, fescue will shut off metabolism before it dies (unlike bentgrass, poa and even bermudagrass).  Nevertheless get the greenskeeper to do one green at a time until he confirms the process is not damaging.

Be sure to select the fescue's with the highest endophype, a nautral insect repellant, the superintendents in Oregon will likely be best able to help you with that.  Let me know if you need anything else.

[Neil Noble]

Ouch I read the Ryegrass comment.  Say it isn't so... try adding colonial bent to fescues in your trials during construction if pure fescue is to dodgy but ryegrass is just giving-up and will look nuclear green. 

Improved ryegrass on a native soil will grow  e 1/4" per day (e = embellishment) and you can lose it quickly on a dry windy day without superior greenskeeping skills.