Shameless Promotion for my Super on Turfnet--Slightly OT

[Chris Cupit]

First I will apologize for what may seem like shameless self promotion   but I feel I must mention my superintendent, Mark Hoban and highlight just some of the great work he and his crew do.  

Mark started his career as a 21 year old assistant under Palmer Maples at The Standard Club in GA.  Together they installed some of the first bent greens in GA.  Mark succeeded Palmer as Head Superintendent in his early twenties and also oversaw the transition of the old Standard Club in brookhaven to the new Standard Club's location in Johns Creek.  Mark has been recognized by his peers multiple times as GA Superintendent of the Year (twice) and was a finalsit for the national award as well.

After 33 years at The Standard Club mark left and I feel lucky to have been able to persuade him to come to my club.  Mark started in 2005 and was an integral part of our renovation proceess along with the architect Michael Riley and our construction crew, Medalist Golf.  

What I admire most about Mark is his constant quest to learn, to educate himself and try new things.  In an industry in which I would suggest we get too caught up in doing things the same old way "just because we always did it that way", Mark is on the cutting edge in our area.  His fellow supers kidingly refer to him as the "Mad Scientist".  Several have confidentially told me they wished they could do what he is doing but can't risk it or persuade their Members/owners to let them try.

I realize that there is some risk and Mark is not at all suggesting he has figured something out that others haven't.  He has found a good situation where I trust what he is doing and am willing to offer him my full support.  We are al learning and time will tell if we are on the right track.

Anyway, enough of this typing--here are the links to the first two Turfnet.com series of videos with Mark.

http://www.turfnet.com/page/turfnet-tv.html

http://www.turfnet.com/page/index.html

The links take you to the Turfnet site and the video(s) are entitled "Chasing Rivermont" Part I and Part II

I would love to hear from others who have tried some of what Mark discusses.  IM me as Mark would love feedback.

Apologies that I, too, appear in the video--you can mute me though

Chris Cupit

[AKikuchi]

Hi Chris- Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed hearing Mark speak about the new approach he's been developing. It does a service to all of golf for such a superintendent to have a home at a club that understands and supports his thoughtful experimentation.

-Alan

[Chris Cupit]

The video featuring Mark is "Chasing Rivermont".  Turfnet produced the videos, not Mark.  Randy at Turfnet knew of Mark and wanted to do a story on what he was doing at our club.

[Tim Martin]

Chris- Great to see that Mark is passing on these new ideas and processes to the next generation as both assistants seem to have bought in and embraced the protocol. I had no idea of what was involved and the videos really provide a great tutorial as to the strides that are being made on that side of the business. The benefits to both the balance sheet and the environment have to be very rewarding. Can't wait to get back to Rivermont as it really is a special place. Best of luck going forward.

[RJ_Daley]

Now that was an excellent offering.  Thanks for cueing it up for us, Chris.  Does Mr. Hoban do many GCS training seminars on his organic program?

How many full and peak season part time on the crew at Rivermont?  I love the ingenuity like the home made worm cast particle separator. 

Since you were at Prairie Dunes this week, Chris, did you find much in common with the native grass program there. 

[Mike_Young]

Tell Mark congratulations on the articles w Randy.  I have slow internet speeds down here and will watch them when back in states...any pictures of his dog?

[Kevin Lynch]

Great videos which highlight the largely unknown & underappreciated work involved in maintaining a course (especially under the heat strains of GA). 

If this is deemed OT, I'm not sure what this site is for.  If any website can appreciate how the maintenance practices actively support the architectural design, it's this one.

[Chris Cupit]

Tell Mark congratulations on the articles w Randy.  I have slow internet speeds down here and will watch them when back in states...any pictures of his dog?

We did a calendar this year and our "July" is of Rudy.  Sadly, Rudy died over the winter and Mark is just now about ready for a Rudy Jr.
Rudy was the damndest dog I've ever seen--trained so well that even in full sprint after a goose or squirrel, he would never let his paw touch a green.  Mark had trained Rudy to never go in a bunker or walk across a green.  He would just sit on the fringe and watch Mark.  Also would sit perfectly still in Mark's cart during lunch. 

Weird--just like his human

[Chris Cupit]

Now that was an excellent offering.  Thanks for cueing it up for us, Chris.  Does Mr. Hoban do many GCS training seminars on his organic program?

How many full and peak season part time on the crew at Rivermont?  I love the ingenuity like the home made worm cast particle separator.  

Since you were at Prairie Dunes this week, Chris, did you find much in common with the native grass program there.  

Not yet.  Right now Dr. Clint Waltz with the UGA turf research station out of Griffin is doing trial plots comparing our compost tea, their compost tea, tradiotnal fertilizers and fungicides on our 12th hole--the first trial has 93 plots, the second trial and third have 45 plots with numerous "check" plots throughout.

Every two weeks they come and perform ratings (color, texture and density) with root testing (density and weight) to be done at the end of the trial--That research will conclude this fall.

[Steve Okula]

Now that was an excellent offering.  Thanks for cueing it up for us, Chris.  Does Mr. Hoban do many GCS training seminars on his organic program?

How many full and peak season part time on the crew at Rivermont?  I love the ingenuity like the home made worm cast particle separator.  

Since you were at Prairie Dunes this week, Chris, did you find much in common with the native grass program there.  

Not yet.  Right now Dr. Clint Waltz with the UGA turf research station out of Griffin is doing trial plots comparing our compost tea, their compost tea, tradiotnal fertilizers and fungicides on our 12th hole--the first trial has 93 plots, the second trial and third have 45 plots with numerous "check" plots throughout.

Every two weeks they come and perform ratings (color, texture and density) with root testing (density and weight) to be done at the end of the trial--That research will conclude this fall.

I would be most interested to see the results of that research.

There are numerous adherents to the compost tea/organic approach in the UK. I haven’t had a chance to see any of their courses myself, but they are generally claiming to have increased turf vigor and reduced disease incidence and a corresponding reduction in fungicide use. On the other hand, I have spoken to people who tried it and gave it up after it showed no results.

I remain skeptical.  So far, I have not seen any scientific research on turfgrass supporting the benefits of compost tea. What’s more, the whole approach seems to me to defy logic.

Soil micro-biology is immensely complicated and little understood. For example, any gram of topsoil will contain up to a billion bacteria of many thousands of species (not counting a multitude of other micro-organisms, nematodes, viruses, fungi,  protozoa, algae, actinomycetes and on and on) the vast majority of which have not even been identified, never mind studied either individually or in their relationship with each other or plants.  There is no way of knowing what microbes are in the soil to begin with, which ones help, which ones hurt, or which ones are indifferent, or how they affect each other, so I don’t see how anyone can guess what applications will be beneficial.

Further, when you consider the scale, the rates of application of compost tea are so minute that common sense indicates they can’t change anything.  Typically, an acre of topsoil (say, the top six inches) will contain millions of billions of soil micro-organisms, with a total weight of over one ton. Mark Hoban says he applies 20 gallons/acre of compost tea every two weeks. By necessity, that 20 gallons will be over 90% water, so he is in effect putting out at most (and probably less) 10-20 pounds of organisms in an area that is already infested with 100-200 times that mass. What’s more, the applications of compost tea are made to the surface, where drying and sunlight will diminish most of the critters before they even get into the soil.

I mean no disrespect ot Mr. Hoban, who I’m sure is a fine superintendent, and if his program is working for him he should by all means continue. But I maintain that it is at best a shot in the dark – it may help or it may not, depending on the situation, and there is no way of knowing until you try.

[Chris Cupit]

Now that was an excellent offering.  Thanks for cueing it up for us, Chris.  Does Mr. Hoban do many GCS training seminars on his organic program?

How many full and peak season part time on the crew at Rivermont?  I love the ingenuity like the home made worm cast particle separator.  

Since you were at Prairie Dunes this week, Chris, did you find much in common with the native grass program there.  

Not yet.  Right now Dr. Clint Waltz with the UGA turf research station out of Griffin is doing trial plots comparing our compost tea, their compost tea, tradiotnal fertilizers and fungicides on our 12th hole--the first trial has 93 plots, the second trial and third have 45 plots with numerous "check" plots throughout.

Every two weeks they come and perform ratings (color, texture and density) with root testing (density and weight) to be done at the end of the trial--That research will conclude this fall.

I would be most interested to see the results of that research.

There are numerous adherents to the compost tea/organic approach in the UK. I haven’t had a chance to see any of their courses myself, but they are generally claiming to have increased turf vigor and reduced disease incidence and a corresponding reduction in fungicide use. On the other hand, I have spoken to people who tried it and gave it up after it showed no results.

I remain skeptical.  So far, I have not seen any scientific research on turfgrass supporting the benefits of compost tea. What’s more, the whole approach seems to me to defy logic.

Soil micro-biology is immensely complicated and little understood. For example, any gram of topsoil will contain up to a billion bacteria of many thousands of species (not counting a multitude of other micro-organisms, nematodes, viruses, fungi,  protozoa, algae, actinomycetes and on and on) the vast majority of which have not even been identified, never mind studied either individually or in their relationship with each other or plants.  There is no way of knowing what microbes are in the soil to begin with, which ones help, which ones hurt, or which ones are indifferent, or how they affect each other, so I don’t see how anyone can guess what applications will be beneficial.

Further, when you consider the scale, the rates of application of compost tea are so minute that common sense indicates they can’t change anything.  Typically, an acre of topsoil (say, the top six inches) will contain millions of billions of soil micro-organisms, with a total weight of over one ton. Mark Hoban says he applies 20 gallons/acre of compost tea every two weeks. By necessity, that 20 gallons will be over 90% water, so he is in effect putting out at most (and probably less) 10-20 pounds of organisms in an area that is already infested with 100-200 times that mass. What’s more, the applications of compost tea are made to the surface, where drying and sunlight will diminish most of the critters before they even get into the soil.

I mean no disrespect ot Mr. Hoban, who I’m sure is a fine superintendent, and if his program is working for him he should by all means continue. But I maintain that it is at best a shot in the dark – it may help or it may not, depending on the situation, and there is no way of knowing until you try.

Steve--THANK YOU so much for weighing in and I appreciate your thoughts.  If you had the time I would love for you to reach out to mark and discuss your thoughts and questions about this program.

As you point out, this is an experiment and it is way too early to draw definative conclusions but we have been encouraged by early (and largely anectdotely) results. 

I promise you--Mark would love talking to other supers and agronomists who may have thoughts pro/con or undecided about this program.  Also, he would love to show any and all interested supers (skeptics welcomed and encouraged) to visit and challenge him on his protocols.  The current test plots are using Dr. Waltz's protocals and ours as Mark thinks his are better 

this may turn out to be tilting at windmills but maybe not and I am certain we will learn more about our turf no matter what--which is nice....(weak Caddyshack reference).

All the best,

Chris Cupit

PS  Mark Hoban can be reached at 770-993-5366 or mhoban@rivermontcountryclub.com

[Ian Larson]

If it works it works. Who cares about independent university research. Kudos to Mark for not following the herd of American Superintendents not using their heads, doing the status quo and turning greens into toxic waste dumps and actually using his wisdom to go on his own like very few other Superintendents have the guts to do. If it's working and the product is good that's all that needs to be said. And kudos to you Chris for supporting Mark. It's very refreshing to see things like this from the maintenance side instead of having $200 k of pesticide inventory in the chemical room. There's a huge problem with the overuse of pesticides in this country and the effect it has on pollinating bees and part of the problem is pesticide use on golf courses and Superintendents. Mark may not have Augusta like conditions but at least he cares and makes an attempt and is passionate about it. That's being a true steward to the environment. Not what the current status quo is.

[RJ_Daley]

Every photo of Rivermont that has been shared on GCA.com has looked like a vibrant thriving golf course. 

Good on Chris for offering up the space and resources for test plots to the turf station. 

There were a number of turf manager-superintendent written articles about compost tea techniques and programs to brew and apply, in Golf Course Management magazine back in the 90s.  I lost track, but aren't there still a significant group of gcsa fellows using a combo of these practices, and traditional inputs?

[Matt Neff]

Further, when you consider the scale, the rates of application of compost tea are so minute that common sense indicates they can’t change anything.  

Steve,

While I am also skeptical about adding MO's to the soil for the same reasons you are, I definitely feel you can feed and promote what's already there which is another of the hypothesized benefits of compost teas as well as humic acid and other carbon sources.  He does also offer some quantitative data in regards to his increased endomycorrhiaze populations on treated vs. untreated which is intriguing.  Whether or not it is directly or indirectly attributable to the mycorrhiaze would, of course, need to be more rigorously investigated but his numbers are certainly interesting.

[Bill_McBride]

Tell Mark congratulations on the articles w Randy.  I have slow internet speeds down here and will watch them when back in states...any pictures of his dog?

We did a calendar this year and our "July" is of Rudy.  Sadly, Rudy died over the winter and Mark is just now about ready for a Rudy Jr.
Rudy was the damndest dog I've ever seen--trained so well that even in full sprint after a goose or squirrel, he would never let his paw touch a green.  Mark had trained Rudy to never go in a bunker or walk across a green.  He would just sit on the fringe and watch Mark.  Also would sit perfectly still in Mark's cart during lunch. 

Weird--just like his human

I love golf course dogs.  I met a beauty at Victoria Golf Club in Canada.  No birds were allowed on the greens or surrounds. 

[Steve Okula]

Bees on golf courses, interesting topic, let’s talk about that.

I have read where misapplications of herbicides and insecticides in agriculture and landscapes have harmed bees, but I have never seen any evidence that fungicide applications on golf courses have done them any harm.

We have 36 holes, and spend about $25,000 per year on fungicides, nowhere near six figures. Ninety per cent of that goes on greens, the rest on tees. We also spend about $5000 per year on herbicides to spray broadleaf weeds out of fairways and roughs. We spend zero on insecticides because there are none labeled for turf in France and it’s just dumb luck we have no insect populations doing intolerable damage.

We have an apple orchard on the property of about 500 trees, vestiges of when the land was a working farm. The trees are old, and don’t produce as much fruit as the members would like to see, so in 2012 we employed a beekeeper to bring in some hives to ensure the pollination of the blossoms.

We started with two hives, but the bees proliferated, and the beekeeper started bringing in more hives (more structures, not more bees) and began propogating bees here on site. We now have six hives scattered around the property. We even produce our own honey, in jars with the club label for sale in the clubhouse. (There still aren’t a lot of apples on the trees, but that’s because they don’t produce many blossoms, for various reasons that have nothing to do with bees.)

Part of the reason the bees thrive here is no doubt from the wildflower plantings we have scattered around the property. 

While we’re on the subject of fungicides, Numerous studies have proven that normal fungicide applications have no significant effect on soil microbiology, at least as far as anyone can see.  Here’s a link to one:
http://turfweb.lib.msu.edu/starweb/servlet.starweb?path=web4.web&id=webfast4&pass=2fast&search1=R%3D40354&format=fl1


The apple orchard.


The bee hives.


The bees.


The widflowers.


The honey.


So you see, golf courses with responsible chemical controls and bees can and do co-exist.

I apologize for the oversized photos, I tried to shrink them in photobucket, but mostly it didn't work.

[Chris Cupit]

Steve,

That is a fabulous program with the bees and something that seems like a win-win-win for everyone.  I am sure Mark would love to learn about what you are doing.

If I remember from your post it seems as if you are in France and you may be way ahead of the curve compared to us.  The United States has seen a dramatic decline in its bee/pollinator population and our experts still don't know why.  We do know there has been a terrible "Butterfly/Ripple Effect" and there is genuine concern over the long term effects of this loss. 

I can't speak to the science of what impact insecticides and other man made products may be having on bees or any other animals.  I do know we are trying to contribute in a small way through a program with Syngenta by creating natural bee boxes, planting wildflowers and limiting our pesticide, herbicide, insecticide usage as much as possible.  Maybe its pointless but if we can provide a quality turf product with less relaince on chemicals we think it is a good thing.

Your fungicide budget would be the envy of many GM's in the US too!   I know that number is low compared to the US as fungicide budgets that I am familar with (particualrly in the SE where supers routinely spray weekly prevenative ratess of fungicides on bent greens during high strees, summer months) would be significantly higher than yours.  Maybe fungicide use is higher than in Europe--it looks like it might be. 

Again, as Mark pointed out, we do not believe we can get to a 100% organic course.  To manage our course we do maintain an "aresenal" of "weapons" including the traditonal chemicals used by supers all over the country.  If we develop serious brown patch, we are going to zap it with chemicals.

I believe that supers and golf courses are in general excellent stewards of their environment.  Nothing we are doing or discussing is an attempt to bash anyone or any method of caring for a golf course.  Mark is looking for new ways or methods to take care of the course in an economical manner; if it lessens our chemcial inputs and that benefits the environment that is another good reason to do this.   

We recognize much of this is experimental--but "real scientists" respect Mark enough to want to spend time and energy quantifying his work and the plots on our golf course will provide real world quantifiable results that can be debated and discussed by everyone.  Chemcial companies have also donated about $9,000 in organic product to be used by Mark as they respect his work too.

It does seem that the tone of your posts is skeptical and that is fine.  But, as an industry we need people willing to try new and different things and approaches in many different environments.  I do not think for a minute that we have "discovered" anything and its great that others may have been doing some of this for years--I do know in my area it is a pretty unique and rare approach and I am proud my super is on the leading edge of this in our area.

Again, thank you for the comments and please reach out to Mark if you find some time.

PS  Mark has agreed to send me a document that I can post and he may be able to describe far better than I what he is up to 

[BCowan]

Chris,

   Thanks for posting, very informative. I really took a liking to Mark when early into the video he expressed his preference of brown sand.   

[Steve Okula]

Chris,

That northern France doesn't have the same disease pressure as you get in the States is the main reason our fungicide budget is comparatively small. Especially our summers aren't so hot and humid as in the southern and eastern regions of the U.S., so in that respect a GCS job is easier over here. In fact, from now until August I probably won't need to spray any fungicides at all. We are mainly affected by Fusarium patch in the spring and autumn.

Any advantage in that area is negated, however, by the French labor laws that make it practically impossible to require people to actually work.

[Mark Bourgeois]

These videos are fantastic. I know nothing about nothing but 7-inch bentgrass roots: that's impressive, right?