The infestation of poa annua at Chambers Bay?

[Mike_Duffy]

I'm astonished at the infestation of poa annua on the greens at Chambers Bay. If Chambers Bay had been an Oz golf course the course superintendent would have had his derriere kicked and shown the front door for the poor upkeep of the greens. Is poa annua a tolerated and accepted standard greens grass in the US or is this an aberration?

[Bill Shotzbarger]

Is poa annua a tolerated and accepted standard greens grass in the US or is this an aberration?

In short, yes. Where I live in the Northeastern U.S. Poa is a necessary evil. Many greens around here are considered bent, with a considerable amount of poa that creeps in, most noticeably in the Spring.


Check out this USGA article: https://cloud.3dissue.com/73035/73358/87210/PoaControlOnGreens/index.html

[Kevin_Reilly]

Mike, Olympic Club replaced their greens with bent a few years ago, and even with that club's financial and staffing resources there is poa on all the greens (spots of poa, not 100%).  It is impossible to keep out on the West Coast.

[Mike_Duffy]

Thanks for the explanation guys. I had an inkling that might have been the case.

[Steve Okula]

I haven't been to Australia since 2006, but I do recall seeing poa in greens in New South Wales and Victoria; have they totally eradicated it in the last ten years? That would be huge news in the greenkeeping world.

[Greg Gilson]

Mike, not sure where you play in Australia. However, in Melbourne Poa is everywhere. Most of the courses have either:

 (1)invested heavily to remove it and are watching it getting walked/blown back in (RM & others) or

(2) have surrendered and just manage around it. Largely by persistent, regular rolling & mowing

 I play much of my golf at Yarra Yarra. Theres lots of things you can say about our course - However, day in and out the greens are as true & fast as any around. I think having surrendered to a single grass (even if its Poa) is the secret. Having 2 grasses in the greens growing at different speeds is the issue.

I recall reading somewhere that something like 7 or 8 of the last 10 US Open venues were pure Poa greens. Maybe that's an urban myth?

PS. FWIW I am loving watching the CB action. The greens look awful but I haven't seen anything yet that tells me the result will be affected.

[Robin_Hiseman]

I was talking with a turf supplier on Thursday who told me that one of the UK's leading private clubs now budgets to replace their bent grass greens every 4 years with freshly grown turf, just so that they can present poa free greens. Good business for him, but an option only for the select few.

[Thomas Dai]

Out of curiosity what do folks reckon would be the % split between fescue/poa/other grass on the greens and fairways at C-Bay?
Atb

[Dan Herrmann]

I've heard that the Bandon Dunes courses have a poa problem too.  True?

[Martin Lehmann]

I was talking with a turf supplier on Thursday who told me that one of the UK's leading private clubs now budgets to replace their bent grass greens every 4 years with freshly grown turf, just so that they can present poa free greens. Good business for him, but an option only for the select few.

I have heard the same story. I think the club is Queenwood.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I was talking with a turf supplier on Thursday who told me that one of the UK's leading private clubs now budgets to replace their bent grass greens every 4 years with freshly grown turf, just so that they can present poa free greens. Good business for him, but an option only for the select few.

The real cost is not really the turf price plus Labour. The time out before they are back in play (5 months?) and then back to their best must be one year. If you say that during the 4th year they are in decline you start to look at a 4 year scenario where they are only great for half the time. Another of the no nice answer situations.


I think we tend to keep greens poa free (if we want to) for 3 years but then it goes 1%, 2%, 5%, 10% at the 1% stage the poa has become a patch rather than an individual plant. If you hard plug those patches you still have twice as much to do the next year.


Poa and Chewings fescue is the real vile mix as the plants look so different. IMO Fescue in that area was a bad choice for greens.

[Bill_McBride]

The late afternoon budding of poa is what the players seem [size=78%]to be complaining about most.   Hot weather and poa is a bad combination.  At Pebble or Olympic it's fine.  [/size]

[David_Tepper]

"At Pebble or Olympic it's fine."

Except for the nematodes!

[Joe Hancock]

Poa sure gets a bad rap.

It really is OK, IF the management is in favor of fescue or bentgrass, yet some poa survives. The problem arises when the management of the sward favors the poa(in an attempt to keep it healthy) and it outgrows the other grasses in the mix. Jon Wiggett and others are also proponents of this philosophy, but it sure doesn't seem to be the normal. Poa causes many to hit the panic button.

New greens are going to eventually have poa. Those early infestations/ poa plants aren't ideal, but over time they will adapt to a regime more suitable towards fescues and bentgrasses. Patiance is key...once again.

[Tony Ristola]

I'm astonished at the infestation of poa annua on the greens at Chambers Bay. If Chambers Bay had been an Oz golf course the course superintendent would have had his derriere kicked and shown the front door for the poor upkeep of the greens. Is poa annua a tolerated and accepted standard greens grass in the US or is this an aberration?

Anyone who has live in the Pacific North West coastal areas wouldn't be surprised by a poa infestation. The winters are wet, wetter and wettest. It's a rain forest. They'd be surprised if there wasn't one.

Don,
In Germany, seeding an agrostis, fescue blend is common. Spraying is restricted, and if the bent gets hit by disease in spots, the fescue is still there to cover the spot.

That said, a course we seeded last autumn was seeded with a fescue/agrostis mix, but the way it's been managed to date has strongly favored bent, and it's overtaking the fescue. I'll try to find the labels from the seed bags; I've got them somewhere on my phone.

At Sand Valley in Poland, we seeded with a fescue/colonial mix on the greens and fescue elsewhere. The course is not maintained for color, but for hard and fast conditions, and I do believe there has been little poa in the greens. Haven't been back in a couple years and will be curious to see it later this summer, or early autumn.

[Bill_McBride]

"At Pebble or Olympic it's fine."

Except for the nematodes!

Do they only attack the poa areas of the greens?


We have new TifEagle greens, not because of poa but because of nematodes.  Not sure the two are necessarily connected. 

[David_Tepper]

"Do they only attack the poa areas of the greens?"

Bill M. -

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is yes. Over the last 10-15 years just about all the courses in San  Francisco (both courses at Olympic, SFGC, Lake Merced, Harding & Presidio) have attempted to create all bent grass greens to eliminate/minimize poa and the nematode problem it hosts. As Kevin Reilly has mentioned, keeping the poa at bay for more than 3-5 years is next to impossible.

DT 

[Bill_McBride]

"Do they only attack the poa areas of the greens?"

Bill M. -

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is yes. Over the last 10-15 years just about all the courses in San  Francisco (both courses at Olympic, SFGC, Lake Merced, Harding & Presidio) have attempted to create all bent grass greens to eliminate/minimize poa and the nematode problem it hosts. As Kevin Reilly has mentioned, keeping the poa at bay for more than 3-5 years is next to impossible.

DT

The only natural enemy of poa is high heat, not likely in Northern California.  Poa is inevitable, so not sure how you eliminate the nematodes. 

[David_Tepper]

Bill -

My understanding is the chemicals that have been used over the years to combat nematodes are very toxic and have been banned. The climates of San Francisco and coastal Northern California are "ground zero" for nematode infestation.

DT

[Jon Wiggett]

Has the San Francisco and coastal Northern California area always had such a big problem with nematodes?

[David_Tepper]

"Has the San Francisco and coastal Northern California area always had such a big problem with nematodes?"

Jon W. -

"Always" is a long time. My understanding is the temperate climate in SF (temps rarely below 40F in the winter or above 75F in the summer, combined with rain in the winter and fog in the summer) makes poa a very favorable host environment for nematodes. It has been a problem for the 30+ years I have been playing golf here.

This article talks about the banning of Nemacur, a chemical that was used to combat nematodes:

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci0614-nematode-control-options.aspx   

DT

[Jon Wiggett]

Thanks for the reply David,

I just wondered as many of the courses have been there 80 or so years and yet the articles written about this problem that I have read give the impression it has become a real problem in the last decade or so.

Jon

[David_Tepper]

Jon W. -

I think the decision to switch to all bent grass greens by these courses was a function of 2 things.

1) Knowing/anticipating that Nemacur was going to be taken off the market.

2) The belief (rightly or wrongly) that new strains of bent would be resistant to poa infestation.


DT   

[Wayne_Kozun]

Poa can be very bad in cold climates as well as we found out here in Southern Ontario last year where if Poa spends a lot of time under ice (>45 days or so if I remember correctly) it will die.  My club had major damage to our greens coming out of the winter of 2013-4 that took until August to heal - helped by lots of overseeding of bent.

[David Jones]

I played at Queenwood in Surrey yesterday and the poa had got on one green and they were actually cutting it out with a cylinder and replacing with new grass. Quite bizarre to see but who's what length they were willing to go to.