Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Gary Sato on April 06, 2015, 12:12:24 PM
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This was mentioned in the Cypress Point thread but I thought it deserved a thread of it's own.
Last week I played golf with one of the executives at Bandon Dunes and he mentioned they have made a decision to not fight the poa coming into the greens. He said "we give up". I'm not sure what they tried to keep it out but recognized that it was a never ending losing battle.
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Poa is pretty relentless on the west coast. I wonder if Bandon will have nematode problems once the greens are predominately poa.
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Help me out here.
If a course is grassed in all fescue, that's what I would expect to grow in. I get that.
If poa moves in, it presumably comes from an outside agnency. Birds, wildlife, human golf shoes, etc.
(I'm guessing that golf shoes are the most likely culprit.)
So, as the airport x-ray scanners don't seem to be enough, what treatments are practical on-site?
Irradiation? Some clensing solution before playing the course?
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Poa that manages to gain a foothold while the maintenance regime favors fescue deserves the space it occupies. There is nothing inherently wrong with poa, as long as the maintenance isn't geared towards it when fescues or bents or bluegrasses are the desired sward. Maintain for what you want, and whatever survives that should be just dandy to play golf from.
Joe
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As far as I know, there are no examples of Pacific Northwest (and probably northern California, too) courses which have managed to fend off an eventual transition to Poa annua.
The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there.
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Poa that manages to gain a foothold while the maintenance regime favors fescue deserves the space it occupies. There is nothing inherently wrong with poa, as long as the maintenance isn't geared towards it when fescues or bents or bluegrasses are the desired sward. Maintain for what you want, and whatever survives that should be just dandy to play golf from.
Joe
Joe,
thanks for the enlightened and well balanced view. Just because it might not be the most desirable turfgrass does not make it bad. It is after all the most successful of the turfgrasses despite never being sown. The only way I have found to keep it out long term is if you can use a hot, dry spell in the summer to burn it out.
Jon
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"The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there."
John K. -
The weather at Stanford is much warmer (with little or no fog), especially during the summer months, than it is at the golf courses in San Francisco and on the Monterey peninsula. I wonder if that makes controlling the poa at Stanford easier.
DT
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As far as I know, there are no examples of Pacific Northwest (and probably northern California, too) courses which have managed to fend off an eventual transition to Poa annua.
The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there.
FWIW, Bandon doesn't take plugs out of greens, either. No course with fescue greens would ... you'd be removing too many plants, and making it easy for Poa annua to take over because the fescue doesn't creep laterally very well.
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As far as I know, there are no examples of Pacific Northwest (and probably northern California, too) courses which have managed to fend off an eventual transition to Poa annua.
The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there.
Never been to Bandon. I've played 3-4 rounds on greens with significant Poa creep. John, in your opinion, what's better for play at Bandon: completely poa greens or fescue with poa creep? Hope the question makes sense.
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There's a new spray called xonerate for poa annua but I'm not sure it's effective on fescue? Has anyone had any success with it?
http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci0512-poa-annua-elimination-xonerate-herbicide.aspx
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The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there.
http://sgcsuperintendent.blogspot.com/2014/11/hydrojecting-greens.html
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Joel--
We test plotted Xonerate on our greens and it hurt the bent grass pretty badly and it did not get all of the poa annua. It may work better on fescue greens. Where it worked great was on fairways and approach areas that are cut at a longer height. There is a new product that is coming out I think early next year called poa cure (I believe it is made in Korea) that might be the answer. The test plots of it are pretty extraordinary. There is an article written about it in one of the Superintendentīs publications last year. It is worth a look.
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I received a text saying Poa Cure may be banned California. Hopefully Oregon has more sense.
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Someone needs to try get Haloxyfop-P-methyl registered in the USA. It is very cheap and at low rates and kills Poa in a fescue sward.
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As far as I know, there are no examples of Pacific Northwest (and probably northern California, too) courses which have managed to fend off an eventual transition to Poa annua.
The best example of maintaining bentgrass greens for a long time, that I'm aware of, is Stanford University GC, where superintendent Ken Williams does not conduct typical aerations. I think he may aerate with small tines, or do that water injection style of aerations. But I don't think he takes plugs out of the greens. After about 20 years, they are still only 1-2% Poa, based on my last round there.
Never been to Bandon. I've played 3-4 rounds on greens with significant Poa creep. John, in your opinion, what's better for play at Bandon: completely poa greens or fescue with poa creep? Hope the question makes sense.
Hi Ryan,
In my experience, greens in mid-transition are less enjoyable to play.
At my home club, Pumpkin Ridge west of Portland, Oregon, it took about 8 years for Poa annua to establish a significant percentage of the greens. Maybe 10-20% or so. At that point, management said they were giving up trying to keep it out, and changed maintenance practices to allow it to flourish. For the next 5-7 years, the greens were relatively slow, uneven and bumpy. After 15 years, the greens were 75-95% Poa, and evolving into a finer putting surface. Poa annua adapts to a low mowing environment, as described by this key USGA article on the subject:
http://www2.gcsaa.org/gcm/2006/dec/pdfs/073-088_dec06.pdf
Now 23 years old, our Poa annua at Pumpkin Ridge have largely evolved into a tight turf well suited to the environment, which allows faster green speeds than the original Penncross bentgrass surface. They are very smooth once again, after several years of bumpiness.
So far at Bandon, Bandon Dunes is 16-17 years old, and the Poa transition is largely complete. Pacific Dunes's greens have been bumpy the last few years, but should smooth out soon. Bandon Trails is a few years behind, with a Poa infestation on the greens nearing that 10-20% mark which begins the difficult transition period. Old Macdonald is still almost 100% fescue, a fantastic surface to play and putt on. Enjoy it while you can.
In my opinion, the fairways take a little longer to make the Poa transition, as player traffic is better dispersed.
The big question is whether the Poa annua grass will make a reasonable surface for the fast, bouncy conditions that some of us covet. I think it's clear that Poa annua will play a bit softer than the planted fescues, but I also think Poa annua will have some advantages as the dominant native grass. At this point I would appreciate someone with professional experience to add anything more.
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John K. -
Do you know if nematodes in the poa greens have been a problem at either Pumpkin Ridge or Bandon?
DT
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Glad John made the distinction that there are four courses out here, each with its own growth history and plan.
Whatever they're doing out here, it is working.
The greens this winter have been as good as they've been in a year.
For courses that get a multiple of average club play on a daily basis, the team is doing a damn good job at working with what mother nature gives them.
Sven
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John K. -
Do you know if nematodes in the poa greens have been a problem at either Pumpkin Ridge or Bandon?
DT
Hi David,
I can ask my superintendent when I see him next time.
I don't think we have had nematode problems. But I don't have a lot of knowledge or experience with nematodes. The last time I was in the Bay Area I played a course that was rumored to be having a recent issue. Those greens were a bit bumpy and brown in places.
I've never heard anyone mention nematodes at Bandon Dunes. I suppose that could change with the changing grasses.
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While there undoubtedly are more n Oregon I just remember Tualaitin CC losing their 1st green to nematodes in the 80s. It looks like CA has about a 6:1 ratio vs OR in the number of golf courses but a 55:4 lead in nematode infestations.
To correct myself the north course at The Reserve Vineyards had a problem with them in two fairways a few years ago. We and mother nature overwatered and drownded them
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Help me out here.
If a course is grassed in all fescue, that's what I would expect to grow in. I get that.
If poa moves in, it presumably comes from an outside agnency. Birds, wildlife, human golf shoes, etc.
(I'm guessing that golf shoes are the most likely culprit.)
So, as the airport x-ray scanners don't seem to be enough, what treatments are practical on-site?
Irradiation? Some clensing solution before playing the course?
Poa annua will be flowering everywhere around the fescue sown areas, in between fairways, in the roughs, around the perimeters. The seed are tiny, something like 2-3 million to the pound, and can be carried by the wind and runoff, or tracked by a lot more than golf shoes; animals, carts, mowers. If you're pumping irrigation water from an open source such as a lake or river then there is probably Poa being effectively hydro-seeded through he sprinklers. Poa is the only weed I've seen infesting artificial turf.
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To try and understand the context of maturing fescue/bent/poa greens, I would be interested to know the height of cut on greens, has that height been constant over the years, and has green speeds also been reasonably constant and acceptable to visiting players ?
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Stuart,
to keep the fescue the height of cut would have to be 4.5mm or above.
Jon
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Poa that manages to gain a foothold while the maintenance regime favors fescue deserves the space it occupies. There is nothing inherently wrong with poa, as long as the maintenance isn't geared towards it when fescues or bents or bluegrasses are the desired sward. Maintain for what you want, and whatever survives that should be just dandy to play golf from.
Joe
Joe,
thanks for the enlightened and well balanced view. Just because it might not be the most desirable turfgrass does not make it bad. It is after all the most successful of the turfgrasses despite never being sown. The only way I have found to keep it out long term is if you can use a hot, dry spell in the summer to burn it out.
Jon
Jon, how do you burn it out? And should I assume you have fescue greens?
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Poa that manages to gain a foothold while the maintenance regime favors fescue deserves the space it occupies. There is nothing inherently wrong with poa, as long as the maintenance isn't geared towards it when fescues or bents or bluegrasses are the desired sward. Maintain for what you want, and whatever survives that should be just dandy to play golf from.
Joe
Joe,
thanks for the enlightened and well balanced view. Just because it might not be the most desirable turfgrass does not make it bad. It is after all the most successful of the turfgrasses despite never being sown. The only way I have found to keep it out long term is if you can use a hot, dry spell in the summer to burn it out.
Jon
Jon, how do you burn it out? And should I assume you have fescue greens?
To hark back to my greenkeeping days, you don't actually burn it out but take advantage of the fact that poa annua is notoriously shallow rooted so unable to deal with any prolonged drought or heat stress so essentially you just turn off the water for a few days and voila. Poa doesn't go very dormant, it just reseeds and dies. What you do with the bare patches then becomes the superintendents problem. In fact, keeping his job becomes the problem so communication would be a good idea.
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As Marc says if the climate is suitable you can use heat and drought to kill off poa. I was HGK at one course where I did that each year. You would get a little poa ingression in spring but by mid June it was possible to eliminate it entirely. I was fortunate that the club wanted the course to play very F&F which it did with the greens stimping at 11+ at 7mm HOC.
Jon
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Stuart,
to keep the fescue the height of cut would have to be 4.5mm or above.
Jon
Jon
I agree with you, but I was referring specifically to Bandon and asking if the HOC has been constant, and if the HOC has been influenced by green speeds over the years. Also, does anyone know how much bent they used in the mix ?
To sum up, I would like to know if the fescues have been given a fair chance.
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Jon
I agree with you, but I was referring specifically to Bandon and asking if the HOC has been constant, and if the HOC has been influenced by green speeds over the years. Also, does anyone know how much bent they used in the mix ?
To sum up, I would like to know if the fescues have been given a fair chance.
I believe the answer is:
Bandon Dunes was seeded with about 8% bentgrass.
Pacific Dunes was seeded with about 4% bentgrass.
Bandon Trails and Old Macdonald were seeded with 0% bentgrass, only fescue grasses.
Don't quote me. All serious inquiries should be made to the people involved.
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Poa that manages to gain a foothold while the maintenance regime favors fescue deserves the space it occupies. There is nothing inherently wrong with poa, as long as the maintenance isn't geared towards it when fescues or bents or bluegrasses are the desired sward. Maintain for what you want, and whatever survives that should be just dandy to play golf from.
Joe
Great quote, Joe. This is really what I've absorbed in talking with greenskeepers in the UK (and NLE mom and pop courses in Grand Rapids). At Kingarrock, the hickory course near St Andrews, the greenskeeper (yes there is only one) was showing us around the greens, and someone identified some take-all patch. He simply replied, "nae problem, it will just come back with fescue in it and play fine."
The attitude about maintaining a character of surface is much more important than worrying about the exact components that make it up.
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So when will it be time to redo the greens at Bandon Dunes? What is the life of the greens?
So maybe they should regress the greens at Bandon Dunes in the next couple of years back with fescue. Or is there another type of grass that will be better?
I don't think the courses are going to change or decline because the greens are poa annua. Rustic's greens are poa annua and they are great.
Do you have to have fescue greens to be a links course? (i know, more questions than answers)
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I believe that poa was probably brought to Bandon on the shoes of visiting golfers. Can anyone tell me why Bandon did not insist upon a strict shoe cleanng program before players teed off? Might that have delayed, if not prevented, poa taking over?
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Bill B. -
Did you read Steve Okula's post on page 1? Poa travels on more than just golfers' shoes.
"Poa annua will be flowering everywhere around the fescue sown areas, in between fairways, in the roughs, around the perimeters. The seed are tiny, something like 2-3 million to the pound, and can be carried by the wind and runoff, or tracked by a lot more than golf shoes; animals, carts, mowers. If you're pumping irrigation water from an open source such as a lake or river then there is probably Poa being effectively hydro-seeded through he sprinklers. Poa is the only weed I've seen infesting artificial turf. "
DT
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Scott,
your reply above and Bill B's go to the root of the problem which is one of perception. It is clear to me that many even well educated people push the idea of a monoculture as some sort of utopic ideal that needs to be pursued to the exclusion of all other ideas. To be a links green the sward does not need to be purely fescue but it should be predominately made up of fescue and browntop bent but will also have a good proportion of poa and other grasses in it. It is this diversity that gives it the resilience required to stay decent on a low input regime of true links maintenance. Poa is not a weed but a highly successful and useful turfgrass that has its place.
Jon
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It seems many on this thread advocate not fighting Poa on fairways or greens, fescue or bent. Quick question to you, focused less on agronomy and more on what a greeens committee should do focusing on playability. On an 8 year old course with really good bent greens, 17 greens are mostly free of any Poa contamination. One green is 20% covered with Poa. This was the last seeded green, it was done late in the season, and density entering winter was poor.
Treatment with weekly spraying for now 2 summerers has only stopped Poa from advancing, but it has not killed any of it. Which of the following would you suggest:
a. do nothing and allow Poa to advance
b. continue to spray trying out new products
c. kill the green entirely and re seed bent
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It seems many on this thread advocate not fighting Poa on fairways or greens, fescue or bent. Quick question to you, focused less on agronomy and more on what a greeens committee should do focusing on playability. On an 8 year old course with really good bent greens, 17 greens are mostly free of any Poa contamination. One green is 20% covered with Poa. This was the last seeded green, it was done late in the season, and density entering winter was poor.
Treatment with weekly spraying for now 2 summerers has only stopped Poa from advancing, but it has not killed any of it. Which of the following would you suggest:
a. do nothing and allow Poa to advance
b. continue to spray trying out new products
c. kill the green entirely and re seed bent
Maybe none of the above. How about re-turfing?
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It seems many on this thread advocate not fighting Poa on fairways or greens, fescue or bent. Quick question to you, focused less on agronomy and more on what a greeens committee should do focusing on playability. On an 8 year old course with really good bent greens, 17 greens are mostly free of any Poa contamination. One green is 20% covered with Poa. This was the last seeded green, it was done late in the season, and density entering winter was poor.
Treatment with weekly spraying for now 2 summerers has only stopped Poa from advancing, but it has not killed any of it. Which of the following would you suggest:
a. do nothing and allow Poa to advance
b. continue to spray trying out new products
c. kill the green entirely and re seed bent
Maybe none of the above. How about re-turfing?
Once again, I am not a professional, but I did sleep in my own bed last night.
I think the answer to this question is somewhat dependent on location.
Poa annua is so dominant in the Pacific Northwest, I think it would be foolish to start over. At Pumpkin Ridge, fairways and greens are now 80-90% Poa annua, so replanting the greens with bentgrass would last 6-8 years maximum, before another painful transition period to Poa. Besides, our greens are really nice now. They are evolving into a tight smooth stand of grass which can be rolled several times a week during high season. Typically, our greens roll at 10.5-11.5 feet during the summer weekends, which makes our subtly contoured greens come alive. They are even pretty firm in the afternoons, and poorly struck shots will not hold.
Unless you are willing to replant an entire golf course at Bandon Dunes, it makes no sense to fight nature. Without knowing their thoughts on the matter, it seems they are best served by allowing the dominant grass to thrive, once it begins to take over. It's cool in the summer, so the Poa should stay healthy and firm year round.
I've spent a significant amount of time at three modern courses around the country: Kinloch in Virginia, Kingsley in Michigan, and Ballyneal in Colorado. These courses in different areas of the U.S. have all managed to keep the Poa out pretty well. In each case I estimate the Poa population is somewhere between 2-10%. All of these courses have hot summers, and they get the majority of their rain in the warmer months, though Ballyneal's climate is quite arid. In Oregon the rain falls in the cooler months.
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I believe that poa was probably brought to Bandon on the shoes of visiting golfers. Can anyone tell me why Bandon did not insist upon a strict shoe cleanng program before players teed off? Might that have delayed, if not prevented, poa taking over?
Is most of the Poa on the putting green and 1st tee? Or has the poa seed hung on and dropped on all greens as a golfer went around the course?
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Jon,
I think my option c is same as re turfing? I meant killing 100% of poa and bet with gas, and starting over with bent.
John,
This is only 1 green in the entire course. The rest have practically no poa and we are removing by hand any small growth of it they might have.
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Hi MClutterbuck,
I'm sorry. I quoted two posts that were irrelevant to my comments.
In your case, it sounds very worthwhile to eliminate the Poa from the one green. Depending on the location, the best answer may be C., start over.
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Bill B. -
Did you read Steve Okula's post on page 1? Poa travels on more than just golfers' shoes.
"Poa annua will be flowering everywhere around the fescue sown areas, in between fairways, in the roughs, around the perimeters. The seed are tiny, something like 2-3 million to the pound, and can be carried by the wind and runoff, or tracked by a lot more than golf shoes; animals, carts, mowers. If you're pumping irrigation water from an open source such as a lake or river then there is probably Poa being effectively hydro-seeded through he sprinklers. Poa is the only weed I've seen infesting artificial turf. "
DT
Yes, I read his post. And I happen to love a good poa green. I think it is an excellent surface. But my question is if you have a 100% fescue green, which is rather rare in the US and the best possible surface for a links course, why not take the simple step of cleaning peoples shoes before they play? Even if poa is prevelant in the region, I still think it would have made sense to delay the inevitable. Just my uneducated opinion.
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Scott,
your reply above and Bill B's go to the root of the problem which is one of perception. It is clear to me that many even well educated people push the idea of a monoculture as some sort of utopic ideal that needs to be pursued to the exclusion of all other ideas.
Well, there's this:
I have an old friend who is perhaps the greatest authority on public parks in America, who is frequently expressing his preference for grass that is green. The best golfing grasses vary in color. They may be red, brown, blue, dark green, light green, yellow, and at times even white and gray. A golf course that is consisted entirely of one shade of green would be merely ugly. -- Alister Mackenzie