Turf 101

[RJ_Daley]

Or maybe it did selectively kill every damn bit of poa, and that is how much couch you had left!

[S. Huffstutler]

Steve, where are you located?  Interested to see if you're in the same zone as Pensacola.

I have heard - thru the grapevine of course - that Champion is much more difficult to maintain and more prone to problems.  In this climate nothing is easy but growing Bermuda.  In your experience, is this the case?

Transition won't be a problem, we won't be overseeding.

.

Thanks.

Bill: I don't overseed greens either, with Champion, you don't need to ,generally speaking. It holds its color better and actually goes dormant later than most other cultivars. There are many courses growing Champion in the Transition zone with success. One of the big problems with bermudagrass greens is organic buildup in the soil, bermuda is quite the organic material generator, in some cases, this becomes a huge detriment to growing good bermuda greens as some cultivars don't like the heavy organic concentrations, so you are constantly aerifying to remove organic matter. I know of several Superintendents in this areas (S. Florida) that aerify their TifEagle greens as many as 7 - 10 times a year. Champion really thrives in a highly organic rootzone, though, so it relieves you of one of the many worries you might have about your bermuda greens. That being said, it is also a heavy thatch producer. This must be managed constantly and if you fall behind, you are well and truly screwed.
As far as it being more difficult to maintain and prone to problems, I would dispute that loudly. One needs to be aware of the needs and problems associated with any cultivar before you plant it. People think that planting an ultra dwarf is going to solve all of their problems, when they haven't taken all of the variables into account, or ignore them willingly. The biggest problem that I see with regrassing in an ultra dwarf is shade. TifDwarf is much more shade tolerant than any of the ultradwarfs, so if you have lousy TifDwarf greens growing in the shade, you will have horrible Champion greens growing in the shade. Bermudagrass requires more sunlight than bentgrass and many new greens fail, generally in the second year, due to shade more than any other reason. You must be willing to manage your thatch on a daily basis with this stuff, I run groomers 6 days a week, I topdress weekly and I aerify 4 times a year.

Hope this helps

Steve

[Michael Hayes]

Deep and infrequent watering is an ideal that every greenkeeper aspires to, BUT IN A GREAT MAJORITY OF CASES IT IS NOT POSSIBLE!  In the northern cool grass zones poas DO dominate.  Most clubs have been managing the poas successfully for decades and would not consider regrassing due to cost alone.   Would I love to maintain a fine leaf fescue/colonial bent course? You Bet!  How many are there in this country, 100?  My bet is not even that many.  I have 100% poa on heavy soils that I manage lean to the extreme. With 3.5 million gallons of water, high iron, primo and wetting agents to manage soil moisture and provide surface my members can be happy with at a low cost.  Do I lose turf in the summer, for sure!  Is my aerifier my best friend, you bet!  

With poas as the dominant turf, shallow rooting is the battle that one must fight. Very light, frequent watering is one way to keep a consistent surface week in and week out....  

[Troy Alderson]

Micah,

"You might be interested to read the thread about Jim Arthur from earlier this year."

Thank you for the reference about Jim Arthur, good read.

Troy

[Don_Mahaffey]

Just one more bit of research I've found that proves deep, infrequent irrigation grows healthier turf. For those in Pac NW, yes I know that poa will not tolerate infrequent irrigation. But if your growing any other turfgrass, then I believe it is very hard to argue against a deep, infrequent irrigation schedule.
Here is the link to the abstract of the study published by The Crop Science Society of America,


http://crop.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/282

One highlight…”bentgrass irrigated every 4 d had significantly greater turf quality, shoot density, and root length density than that watered every 1 or 2 d. The data show that even under putting green management conditions, reduced irrigation frequency of bentgrass produces a larger and deeper root system resulting in greater overall plant health, turf quality, and shoot density.”

[RDecker]

Deep infrequent watering in the summer of 2005 equals lots of job interviews in the winter of 2006.  

Donnie,  how in the world do you get 16 inches of roots?
here in western New England with a push up green 4 or 5 inches is very good and if you've still got 1 or 2" in July you're over the moon about it.

[Donnie Beck]

RD,

Unirrigated fairways... Greens I will have about 6" at the end of August.

[Grant Davey]

Water practices, as with all inputs to a Turf will always be site specific. It is up to a Superintendent to determine how to best apply research and principles to his site with the best interests of the club at hand. Perhaps the coolest thing about this profession is to get out there and see over time where you can go with it, given the tolerance of the club and resources.

Sad to see anyone lose grass whist aiming to improve the conditions. I hope Royal Melbourne has the best growing weather to aid in the recovery.

Grant

[Don_Mahaffey]

RD,
Maybe if the program was started in the middle of a stressful period, maybe not if it was started prior to the stress. I certainly don't claim to know how other supers should care for their course, but the research is there that proves a dryer environment will promote better rooting for some turfs. I'd want the best rooting I could get heading into high stress periods.  

[Joe Hancock]

Mike DeVries has been after to me to write some of the things I've learned over the years re water management. I guess I should, but with you guys doing all the "heavy lifting"...

It takes several seasons to reap the full benefits of deep and infrequent. If someone does it for a few months and rates the program on that period of time, I guarantee they will turn the water back on.

It takes several seasons to chase out the weaklings and be replaced by the hardy plants. Don't expect miracles over night.

Joe

[Jason Topp]

I'm in a suburban neighborhood in the midwest where everyone waters their lawn to a deep green all summer.  I just let it go and it usually turns a bit brown but seems just fine and healthy to me.  

When should I water to keep the lawn healthy as opposed to just looking green?

[Steve Curry]

Bob,

I have consistently had 16" roots in the fairways.  And with the regular deep tine applications I consistently find channels of rooting through the cup cutter depth.

Steve

[Ian Andrew]

To the superintendents, thank-you for doing this.


My questions:

1. Can fescue be playable in a soil that is not sand based ?
    If so....how and what grasses. My experience has always found almost all combinations lead to thick stands of mixed grasses. And please tell me if we architects are smarter to limit the fescues more than we do.

2. Is using Velvet Bent realistic in the north-east ?

[TEPaul]

This has been an excellent thread and most importantly a real valuable "resource" thread, thanks to all the supers on here that contributed and particularly hyperlinked articles of more in-depth resource material. This thread will sink into the back pages but don't worry I'll pop it back up to the front every so often.

I'm aware of a number of clubs that're looking to do some real research into this entire subject----less irrigation, less chemicals, more organics, and basically all for the ultimate goal of vastly improving the playabilities of their golf courses by reestablishing firmer and faster playing conditions which clearly serves to highlight the function of the stratgic options of their courses. Not to mention the fact that these kinds of applied maintenance practices inure agronomy against the types of catostrophic wipe-outs we've seen too often with over-irrigated, chemical reliant, ultra pampered turf. And a number of those clubs look in on this site to help them figure this stuff out.

Joe Hancock said the following and I think it sums up this entire "Turf 101" thread very well;

"It takes several seasons to reap the full benefits of deep and infrequent. If someone does it for a few months and rates the program on that period of time, I guarantee they will turn the water back on.
It takes several seasons to chase out the weaklings and be replaced by the hardy plants. Don't expect miracles over night."

That's the reality and there basically are no shortcuts. I hate to say it but that's also the price a lot of American agronomy is just going to have to pay for too many years of basiclly unhealthy agronomic practices. Clubs that want to do this have to understand they need to commit to it for the duration which could be a number of years. But the results after that time are most certainly worth it, as we can see from the clubs that've done it.

That's one thing I hope this thread has shown. The other is given the necessary time input achieving the ultimate goal is not a simple one-dimensional process even with a long term committment because any golf course's soil and the structure and the make-up of it from course to course is just going to make it very different.

It seems like this thread has proven one thing regarding healthy enduring turf that more consistently provides firm and fast playing conditions, and that is whatever the process and maintenance practices used course to course those roots have got to go deep or deeper. Without that it's just not going to happen. And it's not a hard thing to check---just keep taking core samples and checking the increased length of the roots as you go down this road of less irrigation reliance.

That and minimizing thatch. Thatch is as big an obstacle to firm and fast playing conditions as wet and soft ground. I'm just still not all that clear to what actual extent over-irrigation and excessive thatch go hand in hand.

Thanks for the posts---this thread for me is "printoutable".

[S. Huffstutler]

Thatch: a quick  fact sheet on thatch .
http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/L394.htm


Steve

[Peter Galea]

 I would also venture to say that the roots are looking for water deeper in the soil at HVCC.

This is a pet peeve of mine. Roots do not "look" for water. Roots will only grow in the presence of water. They (roots) do not have a sensory system that will allow them to "smell" or detect water nearby. Roots cannot grow through a dry area to "find" water below it.

[Steven_Biehl]

"Thatch is as big an obstacle to firm and fast playing conditions as wet and soft ground. I'm just still not all that clear to what actual extent over-irrigation and excessive thatch go hand in hand."

TEPaul,

Over irrigation and thatch go hand-in-hand to a very large extent.  If there is excessive irrigation, an excessive thatch layer will form.  If there is an excessive thatch layer, it will require excessive irrigation to manage it.  There is a balance that needs to be achieved between the two.  The keys to this balance is turfgrass growth rate, and thatch decomposition.

Improper irrigation is largest contributor to an excessive thatch layer.  Microbial activity in the soil that is needed for thatch decomposition is aerobic(needs oxygen).  When the turf is continually irrigated, and the thatch layer is not allowed to dry, this creates an anaerobic(no oxygen) environment in the thatch. This anaerobic environment leads to no microbial activity to assist in decomposition of thatch.  So the thatch begins to accumulate.  

Now, assuming that fertility is in decent shape, and on most golf courses in the US we can assume that, water is the biggest contributor to growth rate of turfgrass.  If the improper irrigation from the previous paragraph is continued, the growth rate of the turf will remain rapid while the decomposition of thatch is unchanged.  Turfgrass growth and thatch decomposition become unbalanced.

If the improper irrigation still continues, there is no doubt that and excessive thatch layer will form.  When there is an excessive thatch layer, it leads to over irrigation.  One reason is that organic matter in the thatch layer holds on to the water much more tightly that the soil is able to do.  To get water down to the roots, it becomes necessary to saturate the thatch layer before water will move down to the soil.  This will take extremely large amounts of water to accomplish.  Now you have to keep the thatch layer saturated and are exacerbating the thatch accumulation problem with the anaerobic conditions.  

This leads in to the deep and infrequent water management.  Roots need oxygen to grow properly.  Wetting the soil, then letting it dry down allows oxygen to enter the soil profile.  When the excessive thatch layer has accumulated, the deep and infrequent watering is out of the question.  There will be more problems trying to re-wet the thatch and soil than if it was kept moist.

This is the general idea behind the balance of irrigation and thatch accumulation.  “Improper irrigation” is a broad term that depends on the courses soil characteristics, and irrigation system.  But, somewhere in “proper irrigation” management the surface of the soil needs to be allowed to dry.

Steven

[RJ_Daley]

In order to promote beneficial microbial activity, aren't the tea bag compost mixtures helpful to induce that sort of process to minimize thatch and boast resistance to turf diseases that attack in the thatchy layer?  Aren't courses built over silty-marshy areas, no matter what the depth of the soil-sand cap always going to be more prone to thatchy build up, and never be conducive to promoting the firm and fast conditions that these deep watering, slowly cultivated deep rooting, deep irrigation practices, attempting to produce?  Anotherwords, aren't there simply courses built in areas and conditions where these ideal practices aren't practical or achievable?

[TEPaul]

"This is a pet peeve of mine. Roots do not "look" for water. Roots will only grow in the presence of water. They (roots) do not have a sensory system that will allow them to "smell" or detect water nearby."

Pete:

Are you absolutely, positively sure about that? How do you really know? Have you ever actually asked a root if he can see water if he really looks for it? No, I didn't think you had. Have you actually asked a root if he could sense or smell or detect water? No, I didn't think you had. Maybe Eastern roots are more talented than Western roots. Scott Anderson has some really smart roots at HVGC. It took him almost 15 years to educate them. Some of them even have PHDs in the fine art of "Water Sniffing". Sometimes just for laughs Scott tries to hide the water from his roots but they always seem to find it in less than 24 hours. He said one time he even hid some water in a glass in the bottom righthand drawer of his office and Goddamn if his roots didn't find that too in less than a week.

[Troy Alderson]

TEPaul,

You're not anal retentive are you?

BTW, roots will "search" for water by growing towards cooler temperatures deeper in the soil profile.

Troy

[Paul Sinclair]

We're looking at a major golf course renovation. Our course here in Richmond, VA currently has Vamont bermuda fairways. Some of our members are just in love with this grass and would prefer that we not change it out for one of the newer strains (Tiffsport; Tiff419; etc.) I sense this is more out of some nostalgic attachment to the stuff than from a realistic understanding of what is best from a playing or course maintenance standpoint.

In regard to this, I'm trying to determine if Vamont is EVER used in new course construction or renovations these days? Are there any good arguments to consider Vamont when we redo our course?

Thanks,
Paul Sinclair

[Mark_Guiniven]

I don't understand the triangle models the R&A put out in this turf article. Can someone please explain them?

Changing the nature of greens

[M._Stovall]

Paul,

I would give Dr. Mike Goatley a call at Virginia Tech.  He has experience working with various types of bermudagrass during his days at Mississippi State University.  

Mark

[Jerry Lemons]

.... Is Vamont is EVER used in new course construction or renovations these days? Are there any good arguments to consider Vamont when we redo our course?

Paul,

Vamont is seldom used anymore because there are some better quality turfs availible. Tiftsport is one that is very good and has good cold tolerance. We have used it on a few courses. It's color is dark green and it is as fine bladed as 419. I am sure in Richmond cold tolerance was the reason Vamont was chosen. Like most of us in the Southeast, we have not seen dramitic winter kill on bermudagrass since 1993 and I suggest we are due.

I will be in Richmond (Petersburg) on Feb 14th & 15th if you would like to meet and discuss changes at your club.

Jerry